Harry Potter star Rupert Grint loses £1m tax refund battle

HARRY POTTER star Rupert Grint has lost his legal bid to claim a £1m tax refund.

A tax tribunal judge rejected the actor’s appeal against HMRC decision to block his accountant’s attempts to shield his earnings from the 50p tax rate.

In June, Grint, who is thought to have made around £24m from playing Ron Weasley in the successful film series, launched an appeal in which he argued he should be in line for the refund after the taxman prevented him from employing an accounting period shorter than 12 months, from 31 July 2009 to 5 April 2010, just weeks before the new tax came into place.

The judge ruled that Grint had failed to properly document a change in his accounting date, which meant that a total of 20 months of income would fall to be taxed in 2009-2010. This would have meant than an extra eight months of income would be taxed at 40% instead of the 50% rate.

The judge stressed it was not part of HMRC’s case that Grint was involved in tax avoidance.