Indian authorities accuse BBC of tax evasion after searches

India's Finance Ministry accused the BBC of tax evasion on Friday, saying that it had not fully declared its income and profits from its operations in the country.

Indian tax authorities ended three days of searches of the British broadcaster's New Delhi and Mumbai offices on Thursday night. Opposition political parties and other media organizations have criticized the searches as an attempt to intimidate the media.

Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have also questioned the timing of the searches, which came weeks after the BBC aired a documentary in the U.K. that was critical of Modi.

“The department gathered several evidences pertaining to the operation of the organization which indicate that tax has not been paid on certain remittances which have not been disclosed as income in India by the foreign entities of the group,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes said in a statement.

It said they found “several discrepancies and inconsistencies” and had gathered “crucial evidence” from statements of employees, digital evidence and documents which would be examined more fully later.

The statement also accused the BBC of not paying full taxes on the earnings of employees who came from abroad and worked in India for short durations.

The BBC said in a statement that it would “respond appropriately to any direct formal communication received from the Income Tax Department.”

The Press Trust of India news agency cited unidentified officials as saying on Thursday that investigators collected financial data from select BBC staffers and made copies of electronic and paper data from the news organization.

It said the authorities were investigating issues related to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary companies.

The leader of India's main opposition Congress party, Mallikarjun Kharge, described the search of the BBC offices as an assault on freedom of the press under Modi's government.

Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog, denounced the government's action as “attempts to clamp down on independent media.”