Rupert Grint Owes $2.3 Million In Back Taxes After Losing Appeal Over ‘Harry Potter’ Residuals

Rupert Grint, best known for playing Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter franchise, owes £1.8 million ($2.3 million) to the United Kingdom’s HMRC tax agency.

The actor’s residual earnings from the wizarding series were incorrectly classified as capital assets instead of income, leading to a significant tax bill.

Grint attempted to reduce his taxable income in 2011 by establishing Clay 10 Limited, a company to which he sold his residual rights as capital. Despite this strategy, Judge Harriet Morgan ruled in favor of HMRC, stating that the residuals — primarily from TV and DVD sales of the Harry Potter films — are income and not capital.

Clay 10 currently holds over £27 million ($34 million) in equity, according to a December 2023 filing.

Using the so-called “Beatles clause,” a similar tax avoidance strategy employed by the Beatles in the 1960s, HMRC claimed that Grint sought to pay a lower capital gains tax instead of income tax by selling his rights to the company.

Grint maintained that he was not deeply involved in his finances, a sentiment echoed by Judge Morgan, who noted the actor placed his trust in his father and accountants.

Grint’s acting career began with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 2001, and he appeared in all seven subsequent films, earning around £27 million ($34 million). While maintaining a lower profile than his former co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, Grint has recently appeared in projects such as M. Night Shyamalan‘s Knock at the Cabin, Apple TV+ series Servant, and Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

In 2020, Grint and his girlfriend, Georgia Groome, welcomed a baby girl.

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