'Puli' actor Vijay rubbishes media reports claiming he evaded income tax

Tamil actor Vijay has finally made a statement regarding the income tax raids that took place last week ahead of his film Puli’s release. 

In a statement to media, Ilayathalapathy Vijay said, “Income tax sleuths carrying out searches in the homes and offices of notable personalities is a long-followed, natural practice. They raided my office and home last week to probe whether I have done any tax evasion or not. My family and staff offered full cooperation to the officials and presented all the documents of my income tax returns with evidence. I have been religiously paying income tax, wealth tax and professional tax on all my assets and income till this very financial year.”

The actor also rubbished media reports that stated he had evaded income tax and said they were baseless. A story in The Hindu quoted a senior income tax official saying that Vijay had done partial tax evasion for five years. This story was soon quoted as the source by other media as well.

Vijay has also requested all media to stop spreading false stories about him not paying income tax.

Here is his full statement in Tamil: