Accio £1 million! Harry Potter star’s duel with HMRC goes to court

He might have battled with giant spiders, seemingly indestructible horcruxes and the trauma that his pet rat was actually a human, but this week Grint has got another fight on his hands, this time with HMRC.

In a slightly less magical combat, Rupert Grint attended court yesterday to seek a £1 million tax refund after officials stopped attempts to shield some of his earnings from the 50% rate of tax imposed six years ago.

Tax inspectors prevented the star’s accountants employing an accounting period shorter than 12 months between 31 July 2009 and 5 April 2010, on the eve of the 50% tax rate being implemented.

The 50% tax rate was introduced by the Labour government in 2010 in an attempt to fix public finances after the banking crisis, but was later abolished for the 2013/14 tax year.

In the witness box, Grint admitted that his knowledge about his finances was “quite limited” and that his tax returns were taken care of by his father, Nigel, and his accountant, Dan Clay.

Grint, who began filming for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 at the same time of the account in question, is said to have earnings of £24 million from his work on the Harry Potter film series.

Grint had “paid all his tax upfront”

Grint’s barrister, Patrick Soares, made a point of highlighting that there was nothing improper about seeking the £1m refund, and that Grint had “paid all his tax upfront”.

Tax inspectors had rejected the changed date after the discovery of an accounting document during a routine VAT inspection, which showed a different date. Grint’s lawyers argued that the document was an informal summary of financial information and was never intended to constitute an official set of accounts.

No figure for a potential refund has yet been released by the court.

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Karl Bilby

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