According to sources 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 And while the Income Tax was hell bent on making him pay up some Rs 66 lakh all these years, the case has been withdrawn, and Rajini is presumably debt free as far as the state exchequer is concerned.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 in 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’.
Moreover the actor has not commented on the issue yet, and considering the Income Tax department has decided to withdraw their case against him, we’ll perhaps not get a statement from them either. However, TNM spoke to experts on what it means to be a money lender, as far as tax benefits are concerned. And while these experts cannot comment on what rajinikanth is or isn’t into, they said that sometimes, ‘money lending’ activities fall in the realm of creative accounting. “It’s not tax evasion, but could be considered tax avoidance,” another tax expert said, while reiterating that he did not know the specifics in this particular case.
