Rupert Grint: Harry Potter star’s fortune swells ahead of hefty tax bill
The fortune of Harry Potter star Rupert Grint jumped to more than £30m in the year before being hit by a hefty tax bill, it has been revealed.
The actor’s wealth has increased from £27.7m to £30.6m, according to new accounts filed with Companies House for the 12 months to 31 March, 2024.
The total is made up of £12.2m in investments, £4.5m in cash and £15.1m that he is owed, minus what he owes to creditors and other costs.
The accounts come after City PM reported in November 2024 that Rupert Grint’s appeal against HMRC imposing a £1.8m tax bill on him was dismissed, after a Tribunal upheld a Beatles clause against the actor’s tax affairs.
HMRC had sought to impose over £1.8m of tax on Rupert Grint for the tax year 2011/12 under “the sales of occupation income provisions” contained the Income Tax Act 2007.
The actor, who started filming the first Harry Potter film at age of 13 depicting Ron Weasley, was paid for the movies but was entitled to further payments that had his name attached.
Those payments were over £8.5m, made up of over £4m as income from contracts and £4.5m for rights and goodwill.
On 1 August 2011, Clay 10 Limited was incorporated, with Rupert Grint as the sole shareholder and his late father as the company’s sole director.
The rights, together with what was described as business information, records relating to the acting and goodwill attached to his name were transferred to Clay 10 on 13 October 2011.
For the tax year 2011/12 the actor accounted to HMRC for the sum of over £4m as income and for £4.5m as a capital gain, which he claimed entrepreneurs’ relief and paid capital gains tax at 10 per cent.
Despite that, in January 2014, HMRC opened an enquiry into his tax return for the tax year 2011/2012, and in 2019 the agency issued a closure notice.
In the computation of income tax due in the closure notice, credit was given for the near £450,000 of capital gains tax paid by Grint.
The co-called ‘Beatles clause’ is a targeted anti-avoidance rule aimed at preventing entertainers from converting highly taxed income to lower-tax capital receipts.
It was named after the famous Liverpool band after it set up a company and sold their music rights to it to avoid paying income tax in favour of capital gains.