Rupert Grint must conjure up $2.3 million in taxes for Harry Potter residuals after new ruling

Goddamn it! Rupert Grint has to pay the UK a significant amount in income taxes.

According to the Associated Press, the actor who played Ron Weasley in Harry Potter now owes £1.8 million ($2.3 million) to the tax agency His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) because of residuals from the wizarding series.

A request for comment from Entertainment Weekly was not immediately answered by Grint’s representatives.

After the HMRC revealed that Grint had misclassified £4.5 million in Potter residuals as a capital asset rather than income, he was have to pay extra taxes in 2019. Judge Harriet Morgan finally ruled with the HMRC when Grint’s attorneys challenged that ruling, ruling that the star’s residuals, which mostly come from the selling of the eight Harry Potter films on TV and DVD, are in fact income and not just a capital asset.
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The actor founded Clay 10 Limited in 2011 and sold his remaining rights to the business as capital in an effort to reduce his taxable income, according to The Telegraph. According to a December 2023 filing, Clay 10 had more than £27 million ($34 million) in equity as of March 2023.

In response, HMRC invoked the “Beatles clause,” which basically asserts that Grint tried to take advantage of the same tax loophole that the Beatles attempted to utilize in the 1960s when they formed a business and sold their song rights to it in order to pay a far lower capital gains tax rather than income tax.

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The actor “placed his faith in his father and accountants to deal with his financial affairs,” according to The Telegraph, and Judge Morgan concurred with Grint’s assertion that he was not especially active in his own finances.

The Harry Potter television series prohibits franchise text during tryouts and launches an open casting call to recruit new Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
Filming for Grint’s first movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, started soon after he turned twelve. Grint has kept a low profile compared to his more active co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson after playing Ron in all seven of his follow-up films (and earning an estimated £27 million, according to the Associated Press). However, he has recently made appearances in films such as M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin and Servant, as well as in an episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.