Malayalam actor Prithviraj recently purchased a Lamborghini Huracan, a swanky sports car designed and built by Italian luxury supercar makers Automobile Lamborghini. According to sources, Prithviraj is the first Mollywood star to purchase the 2.99 crore luxury sports model.
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The actor who purchased the Huracan LP 580 2 model black sports car even registered it in Kerala at the Kakannad Registrar office paying a whopping Rs 43.16 lakh tax on the beast. This, according to sources, is the first such car to be registered in the State.
The incident comes in the backdrop of the Kerala Motor Vehicles Department clamping down on prominent Malayalam actors for road tax evasion. Mollywood actors Fahadh Faasil, Amala Paul and actor-BJP MP Suresh Gopi had to appear before the crime branch in December ’17 – January’18 for evading huge amounts of road tax by registering their luxury cars in Puducherry.
While actor-MP, Suresh Gopi, had reportedly registered his Audi Q7 in Puducherry by paying only Rs 1.5 lakh as road tax, a Mathrubhumi report stated that actor Amala Paul had bought a Mercedes costing over 1 crore and paid only Rs 1.75 lakhs as tax.
The report also said that the popular actor Fahadh Faasil had registered his Rs 70 lakh Mercedes Benz E class in Puducherry by paying only Rs 1.5 lakh as car tax, as opposed to Rs. 14 lakh road tax he would have had to pay in Kerala.
Following this, the state Motor Vehicles Department launched a probe and filed cases, leading to the actors being summoned by the crime branch for interrogation.
Registering a luxury car in a state would mean paying anywhere from 28% to 43% as goods and services tax (with cess) based on the model and road tax between 3 and 24% depending on the state.
In Kerala, the road tax for cars costing above Rs.20 lakh is 20%, whereas in Puducherry it is only 13.75%, claim experts.
According to a top official in Kerala Motor Vehicles Department, the estimated loss to the state exchequer due to this trend is reported to be in excess of Rs 300 crore over the past five years.
Apart from paying a huge amount as road tax, Prithviraj, who is known as a petrol-head within industry circles for his love of cars, also went ahead and shelled out Rs 7 lakhs to acquire a fancy number for his new car.