High Court to actor Dhanush: Pay Rs 30 lakh within 48 hours as tax for Rolls Royce import

Weeks after the Madras High Court ordered Tamil actor Vijay to pay Rs 1 lakh as a fine for failing to pay the entry tax of his Rolls Royce Ghost, actor Dhanush will now have to pay Rs 30 lakh as an entry tax for his Rolls Royce. Hearing a 2015 plea by the actor challenging the entry tax on his Rolls Royce Ghost, the court has ordered him to pay full entry tax.

The court said that actors and celebrities should act as responsible citizens and should not ply their cars on the public roads without paying taxes fully. Justice S M Subramanium also came down heavily on the award-winning actor for not disclosing his profession in the plea. The court has given the actor time till Friday to explain the same.

The court directed the RTO officials to be present during the hearing so that they can compute the necessary taxes and give the details of the balance amount to the actor. The court did not give any relief to the actor and has ordered him to pay the taxes in full amount.

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Dhanush has paid more than Rs 30 lakh

In 2015, when his Rolls Royce Ghost landed in India, he paid little more than Rs 30 lakh. However, that accounts only for about 50% of the entry tax demanded by the authorities as per the law. Dhanush had then filed a plea and based it on the past rulings against the entry tax back then. Even though Supreme Court had withheld the judgement later, Dhanush did not withdraw the case from the court.

The actor told the court that he is willing to pay the remaining amount and also sought the court’s permission to withdraw the case officially. Dhanush’s lawyer Vijayan Subramanium spoke with NDTV and said, “The earlier counsel had passed away. I don’t know why the profession wasn’t divulged. Now he (Dhanush) is willing to pay it (the tax) fully. We asked for notice so it can be done before Monday.”

The ruling comes only a few weeks after the same high court ordered actor Vijay to pay the fine and the remainder entry-tax amount for his Rolls Royce Ghost. Even Vijay had filed a plea seeking relief from paying the full tax amount.

The Indian government charges one of the highest taxes on the imported completely built units (CBU). The tax is to encourage the foreign manufacturers to set up plants in India that in turn creates more jobs in the country. For a multi-crore car like Rolls Royce, import taxes can run into lakhs and owners do whatever they can to get relief.

Many owners of such high-end, expensive vehicles choose to register their vehicles in states and union territories where the registration taxes are much lower. Since all the states do not charge road tax uniformly, such scams are quite common across the country.

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