Indian skipper MS Dhoni will have to pay a one-time tax and penalty for his Hummer H2 SUV that was “mistakenly registered” as a Scorpio by the transport office in his hometown of Ranchi.
Ranchi district transport officer Nagendra Paswan said Dhoni’s vehicle was registered as a Hummer in 2009. “During online updation in 2012, the Hummer changed to a Scorpio, which was a typing error. We will rectify it,” he said.
The transport department will ask for an invoice to determine the tax, which is 4% of the cost of the vehicle. A Hummer H2, which is imported to India, costs between Rs 75 lakh to Rs 1 crore, so Dhoni will have to pay around Rs 4 lakh, excluding the fine. The tax for Scorpio is around Rs 53,000.
Before changes were made to the motor vehicle act in 2011, road tax had to be paid every year. Now, it is a one-time payment.
“He (Dhoni) has paid tax till 2010. He will have to pay a one-time tax along with penalty as per rules,” news agency ANI quoted Paswan as saying. “The typist while uploading details of Dhoni’s Hummer couldn’t find the vehicle’s model in the options, as it is an international brand. As you can’t put in any further details until you select a model, he must have selected Scorpio as the model type for Dhoni’s car. It was a typing mistake.”
The 34-year-old Dhoni, who captains India in the shorter formats of the game, is passionate about bikes but also has an extensive collection of imported cars.
Dhoni was ranked 23rd on the Forbes list of the world’s highest-paid athletes in 2015,