IT Dept Defends Actor Vijay's Petition Challenging Rs. 1.5 Crore Penalty Order in Court:

IT Dept Defends Actor Vijay's Petition Challenging Rs. 1.5 Crore Penalty Order in Court On Tuesday, the Income Tax department opposed Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) president and actor C. Joseph Vijay’s petition. His petition challenged a penalty order of Rs 1.5 crore for voluntarily not disclosing an additional income of Rs 15 crore in the financial year 2015-16 (assessment year 2016-17). Before Justice C Saravanan, senior standing counsel for the Income Tax Department, named AP Srinivas, said that the penalty of Rs. 1.5 crore on Vijay was correctly levied under Section 271AAB(1) of the Income Tax Act and therefore requested the court not to quash the writ petition. Officials claimed that they conducted a search at Vijay's residence on September 30, 2015, where they seized some documents that indicated that an income of Rs. 15 crore had not been disclosed from the film Puli, which legally attracts a penalty. As per the investigation, P.T. Selvakumar and Shibu of SKT Studios had paid Vijay Rs. 4.93 crore in cash, apart from the remuneration of Rs. 16 crore through cheques, as the lead actor. They deposited the Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) of only the cheque amount and not for the cash transaction.

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When officials informed the actor Vijay about this, he allegedly admitted that he was given Rs. 5 crore in cash and that the income was not disclosed. So, agreed to pay tax on that amount. When the actor was questioned about how much unaccounted income he had earned in the past six months, he answered that he had not received any unaccounted income in the past six months, except for Rs. 5 crore from Puli. In order to cooperate with the Income Tax Department in an amiable manner, the actor agreed to disclose the unaccounted additional income of Rs. 15 crore, adding a cash transaction amount of Rs. 5 crore for the assessment year 2016-17 and also to pay applicable taxes on it. Thereafter, on July 29, 2016, he again filed his Income Tax Return (ITR) for the assessment year 2016-17, disclosing a total income of Rs. 35.42 crore (Rs. 15 crore included). When filing his tax returns, he said he should get depreciation benefits for assets worth Rs. 17.81 lakh and also asked for an exemption of Rs. 64.71 lakh spent on his fan club.

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But the tax department rejected both claims. On December 30, 2017, it issued an assessment order fixing his taxable income at Rs. 38.25 crore. The order also mentioned that the actor would not have revealed this extra income if the search and seizure operation had not taken place. However, Vijay’s lawyer in defence argued that the penalty case was filed too late (barred by the limitation period), saying it should have started by June 30, 2019, but instead began on June 30, 2022. The judge then told the lawyer to bring, by October 10, 2025, a copy of a decision he had given earlier in a similar case about delay limits. The writ petition was due for the last hearing in December 2023; however, it was postponed as Justice Saravanan got engaged in a final hearing of a long-pending income tax case.