India captain MS Dhoni has been caught in a tax evasion controversy over his Hummer H2, an SUV manufactured by an American company. The vehicle, which entails a registration charge of Rs. 4 lakhs in India, was mistakenly registered as a Mahindra Scorpio, the charge of registering which is only Rs. 53,000.
It seems that administrative shortcomings were more to blame for the misunderstanding that any individual. The district transport officer of Ranchi has revealed that it was the transport department who recognised the vehicle as a Scorpio in 2009, and that no one on Dhoni’s behalf was party to the wrongdoing.
The typist who was engaged to the task of registering Dhoni’s vehicle had entered the car as a Scorpio Mahindra because the option of a Hummer had not been available then. The typist had to select the Indian brand in order to fill additional details and complete the registration.
Dhoni will now have to pay a one-time tax along with a penalty for the comedic error. As a result of the error, the transport department has suffered a loss of over Rs 3.5 lakhs over the last 5 years.
Dhoni’s taxes are paid till 2010: DTO, Ranchi
“He has paid tax till 2010. He will have to pay one-time along with penalty as per rules,” said Nagendra Paswan, DTO Ranchi.
“The typist while uploading details of Dhoni’s Hummer couldn’t find the vehicle’s model type in options back then, as it is an international brand. As you can’t put in any further details until you select a model, he must have selected ‘Scorpio’ as model type for Dhoni’s car. It was a typing mistake,” he added.
The controversy could not have struck at a worse time for Dhoni or for the Indian team, but it is hoped that this has no bearing on the events at the ongoing World T20. The timing of this controversy, seven years after the act of registration, also raises a few questions.
This is, however, not the first time an Indian cricket team superstar has been involved in a controversy regarding taxes over cars. In 2003, Sachin Tendulkar had been in the eye of a storm after it had emerged that the Indian government had waived import duty off a Ferrari car that he had been gifted for breaking Don Bradman’s record of 29 Test centuries.
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