Chennai: Tamil superstar C. Joseph Vijay received a major relief from the Madras High Court on Friday after the court ordered him to pay the penalty for delayed payment of entry tax only from January 2019 till December 2021 and not from 2005. The case involved him importing a BMW X5 luxury car from the United States in 2005.
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In January this year, the actor challenged in court the notice issued to him by the State Commercial Taxes Department demanding a whopping Rs 30.23 lakh entry tax including penalties levied since 2005. Disposing of the writ petition, Justice R. Suresh Kumar said that the actor was liable to pay entry tax. The judge, however, agreed with advocate A N R Jayaprathap, Vijay's lawyer that the Commercial Taxes department should have levied the penalty from January 29, 2019, when the division bench of the High court clarified that the state government was entitled to levy such tax, and not from 2005.
Vijay, his lawyer said, had paid the tax liability of Rs 7.98 lakh in December 2021 but challenged the penalty alone. Vijay had bought the Rs 63 lakh BMW X5 from the United States in 2005. He imported it to India paying the necessary import duty since there were no authorised dealers in Chennai at that point in time.
