This whole HMRC debacle

[Stimpy 0]

Did he? How do you know that he hid it?

 

 

Edit - also does anyone understand what the small tax bill was about? I don't recall ever reading what the details were.

 

Not sure how true this is, but a friend of mine was at a fan function with ex players who said it involved 3 players that thought they were PAYE and turned out they got a tax bill in. They sent it onto the club where I think it was sweeped or denied. Can't remember the full story but it was along those lines.

 

Sounds bonkers so don't shoot the messanger.

[capstans 0]

I thimk the part about Johnstone sayimg the board knew nothing about it might give the game away.

 

Of course murray may just have let it slip his mind for about 8 years.

[Zappa 0]

Edit - also does anyone understand what the small tax bill was about? I don't recall ever reading what the details were.

 

I thought it was regarding Discounted Options Scheme/s or DOS for short?

[bluebear54 0]

A lot of questions - and at present no answers.

When this is all over, we'll still be no wiser.

Just more questions with no answers.

Does my nut in.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

If the tax case goes against us i think there will be a humongous fall out over it, hopefully it will all come out in the wash. If we win the tax case i think it will all be quickly forgotten about, but again hopefully lessons will be learned for the new owner, but that maybe a different story for a another day.

[Zappa 0]

Interesting look at the Aberdeen Asset Management DOS case by Derek Allen of ICAS. This was published on icas.org.uk just over a year ago (Nov' 2010). - http://taxation.icas.org.uk/Home/Home2/tabid/61/entryid/123/Default.aspx

 

3. Tax Planning and the Discounted Options Scheme

Aberdeen Asset Management Plc v Revenue & Customs [2010] UKFTT 524 considered a tax avoidance scheme known as the Discounted Options Scheme (â??DOSâ?) established by the Appellants to provide additional remuneration to a number of their employees in the financial services industry. The essential question for the Tribunal is whether the arrangements work and thus avoid liability to account for tax under the PAYE and National Insurance regimes.

 

The appeals (all heard together before J Gordon Reid QC in Edinburgh as one appeal) relate to the tax years 2000/2001, 2001/2002 and 2002/2003. After 2003, the scheme will not work so the issue is whether it worked historically. The total amount of income tax claimed is in the order of about £5.4m. The amount of national insurance contributions claimed is in the order of about £1.6m. I am always interested to read about such schemes because tax efficient remuneration is always of interest.

 

The essence of the Scheme is that the Appellants establish an offshore Employee Benefits Trust (â??EBTâ?) for their employees, which is a discretionary trust with professional trustees from the Isle of Man. The beneficiaries with which we are concerned, are senior employees or directors of the Appellants who are to be rewarded with additional remuneration for past performance. Substantial funds are transferred by the Appellants into the EBT. An Isle of Man company (a â??money box companyâ?) with £2 share capital is created or acquired for each employee who, because of his good performance, is to be favoured. The directors of these money-box companies are professional administrators from Jersey or the Isle of Man from the same organisation as the professional trustees. The EBT subscribes for the two shares in the Isle of Man company. One share is paid for at par (£1); the other at a very substantial premium which might range from about £100,000 to over £1m.

 

At or about the same time, a Family Benefits Trust (â??FBTâ?) is established by the trustees of the EBT for each of the favoured employees; the beneficiaries are the employee and his immediate family with a charitable longstop. The trustee of the FBT is a professional trustee again from the same organisation. The family trust fund is a nominal £10 provided by the EBT. The companyâ??s authorised share capital is increased by £10,000 and it then grants to the FBT an option to subscribe for 10,000 ordinary shares in the company. The existence of the option is said to dilute the value of the two original shares. One or both shares in the company are transferred to a nominee company for behoof of the favoured employee. The option subsists usually for a year and then lapses without exercise.

 

The individual employee holds the beneficial interest in the money box company. He benefits by inter alia receiving soft loans (i.e. loans at low interest rates which will not be required to be repaid; the interest is not paid either or is funded by a further loan) or the use of property from the company. In this way, the employee receives substantial additional financial benefits which are said to be immune from liability for PAYE and National Insurance contributions. Had the employee simply been paid a cash bonus of an identical amount to the sums paid into the money box company for good performance, the bonus would have fallen within the PAYE and National Insurance regimes.

 

The tribunal upheld the companyâ??s view that entitlement to receipt of the additional remuneration (whether in the form of cash or shares) did not arise at the stage at which the Remuneration Committee made its recommendations. The Tribunalâ??s assessment of the facts is that the structures put in place simply operated as means of channelling the additional remuneration from employer to employee. The form and shape of the additional remuneration or benefit may have changed from the time it left the Appellantsâ?? control to the time it came under the employeeâ??s control but the substance of what was being provided did not. As the Appellantsâ?? accounts indicate, bonuses are awarded for performance, as an incentive and to encourage senior employees to remain with the company. That is what the Appellantsâ?? senior executives expected and that is what they received. The employees were paid for PAYE purposes when the Trustees exercised their discretion to award each employee shares in the offshore money box companies and tax and NIC was due on the moneys worth made available to the employee.

 

The judgement records at paragraph 45 that:

â??They are essentially actors playing a role created for them in a script written by tax advisers to disguise the fact that large bonuses are being paid by an artificial mechanism devised inter alia to elide or mitigate the effect of the PAYE regime. When the artificiality is stripped away, the underlying substance of the edifice is exposed as simply a means of providing successful employees with additional remuneration which falls to be taxed as such.â?

 

The scheme failed but the judgement is an interesting read because of what it says about statutory interpretation, the Ramsay principle and shams and can be read in full at: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKFTT/TC/2010/TC00779.html

[rbr 1,247]

Zappa , what you posted above was used word for word by the Rangerstaxcase nutters as having indepth working knowledge of how our EBT was used, only they changed some of the words from family members to players.

Bluedell , C W has publicly stated that he cannot deal with HMRC , also it is in the takeover circular that MIH is dealing directly with HMRC , thats why they are paying the QC

[Zappa 0]

Zappa , what you posted above was used word for word by the Rangerstaxcase nutters as having indepth working knowledge of how our EBT was used, only they changed some of the words from family members to players.

 

I know mate, that's one of the reasons I posted it. Rangerstaxcase are clearly guilty of plagiarism (surprise, surprise). The funny thing about it is that the writers of the RTC blog wax lyrical about their so-called revelations, scoops and in-depth knowledge, when all they're doing is taking the work of other people and disguising it as their own. There's a chance that someone from the ICAS team is helping them, but even if that were the case, it's still plagiarism if the original source isn't referenced.

[Juancornetto 1]

Rangers Tax Case had a go at Stewart Regan earlier on Twitter questioning the legitimacy of clubs issuing two contracts to players and how that relates to a n SFA mandate to play in UEFA competitions. Regan dismissed it as "if's, but's and maybes" It's clear now that all of these muppets (RTC PMGB etc) know nothing more than the rest of us and have ran their race with regards credibility. It has been quite disturbing the way some individuals have gone about trying to undermine Rangers Football Club.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

Rangers Tax Case had a go at Stewart Regan earlier on Twitter questioning the legitimacy of clubs issuing two contracts to players and how that relates to a n SFA mandate to play in UEFA competitions. Regan dismissed it as "if's, but's and maybes" It's clear now that all of these muppets (RTC PMGB etc) know nothing more than the rest of us and have ran their race with regards credibility. It has been quite disturbing the way some individuals have gone about trying to undermine Rangers Football Club.

 

Welcome to the hate filled bigotry world of the Celtic minded.