Accordingly in the last few days, it has been revealed that Superstar and ever aspiring politician rajinikanth had an ‘oops!’ moment with the Income Tax department some 15 years ago. And while the Income Tax was hell bent on making him pay up some Rs 66 lakh all these years, the case has been withdrawn, and Rajini is presumably debt free as far as the state exchequer is concerned. However, it now appears that around the same time as his misadventures with the I-T department, rajinikanth also became a self proclaimed money lender.
Furthermore Mohammed Imranullah S wrote exclusively that rajinikanth had claimed to be in the ‘money lending business’, according to tax assessment reports that the newspaper has accessed. Apparently, the actor told the I-T department that he lent money to his friends for an interest, and claimed income and losses from this business. Further, he told the I-T department that he was lending money at an interest rate of 18%. However, the Income Tax department, back in 2005, did not accept his claim that this was a business, and suspected that he was only claiming to be a money lender in order to write off ‘bad debts’.
A senior chartered accountant, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, “We do not know the specifics of Rajinikanth’s case of course, but in some cases, when people face losses either because they gave money to someone personally or for other reasons, they try to offset the loss by calling it a business loss. Basically, if you lose money as an individual, it’s just money you’ve lost. But if you’re a money lender and you have lost money, it’s a business loss, that can be accounted for while filing returns.”
