Real Truth about Actor Vijay car tax issue explained

Actor Vijay sought exemption from entry tax levied by State Government  and not import duty. Any imported car has to be registered at nearest RTO and it is only temporary. The issue of entry tax had  many celebs into trouble like Fahad Fazil- Amala who bought vehicles registered in Puducherry to get lower taxes and was asked to pay entry tax for registering in Kerala. The imposition of Rs 1 lakh fine is according to many legal experts a bit high handed. There are several litigations on this entry tax in the High Court and none were given any such penalty. The observations made in the judgment lack maturity as Actor Vijay had donated Rs 1.5 crore towards PM - TN- Kerala CM funds to combat Covid. This was not taken into account while terming the respondent as `reel heroes’ says legal experts.

A falsehood is circulated that Sachin Tendulkar was granted exemption from tax which  Vijay  was seeking. Sachin was gifted a sports car by racer Schumacher and the cricketer sought import duty exemption. Then Union Minister Pramod Mahajan gave the sanction. However, the entry tax issue remained and finally the car manufacturer FIAT paid it and got it registered in Mumbai. The car was later sold to a Gujarati bizman by Sachin for half the cost price.

The entry tax is payable to vehicles that wants to get registered in any State. This came after the Union territory areas were tax free. Vijay had paid the import duty and RTO tax for temporary certificate. To get a permanent RC, Vijay was told by Assistant Commissioner  (assessment) to pay 15% of the total value ( based on customs duty) to get it. Without this, the car cannot ply on the roads. Vijay like many others filed a case that since he had paid import duty, he was not liable to pay entry tax. The argument being that the car by paying import duty was not coming under the category of cars that were bought in States or Union territories that has fewer sales taxes. It was in 2012 when GST was not in force.

Over enthusiastic   Thalapathy fans are circulating a tax receipt from an RTO for the car to show that no tax evasion existed. Vijay’s lawyer Kumaraesan had submitted that to get a permanent registration number, his client had sought it and was asked to pay entry tax. The lawyer also pointed out that without this registration, the car was lying idle.