Celtic board members = Tax cheats?

[forlanssister 3,050]

You know the feeling you pay your expensive tax advisers for some expensive tax advice on how you can mitigate the tax laws to your advantage. You take the advice you're given and implement it accordingly you do it for years, everything's above board and legal then all of a sudden HMRC says "oh no you can't do that we don't like it and we'd like you to give us some money we feel is due". The next thing you is there's a sudden outburst of moral superiority and cries of, "tax cheats", "cheating Her Majesty", "what about the schools and hospitals an arat" yada yada yada.

 

Well step foreword one Peter Thomas Lawwell and one Eric James Riley both members of the Celtic board, Lawwell member of the SFA Professional Game Board, Riley a member of the SPL Board. Both are members of a LLP called Inside Track3 which is allegedly a 'tax efficient film investment vehicle' or rather it was since HMRC have decided it's merely "an aggressive tax avoidance scheme" and as the Rangers Tax Case blog keeps lecturing "tax avoidance is illegal" so can we see their expose of the Celtic directors tax cheating any time soon?

 

 

Tide turns in tax war as loophole is closed

 

 

A landmark victory for Revenue & Customs to deny wealthy investors £117 million in tax relief has ushered in a new era of intolerance towards tax avoidance by the rich.

Eclipse 35, a film investment partnership whose members include Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, was barred from claiming tax relief on a complex £1 billion deal with Disney.

 

If the 2007 scheme had succeeded, each of the 289 members of Eclipse 35 could have enjoyed an average of £404,000 in tax relief on a personal investment of £173,000. Other investors included Sven-Göran Eriksson, the former England manager, as well as bankers, chief executive officers and hedge-fund managers.

 

The decision of a tax tribunal could have a wide-reaching effect on dozens of other film schemes as well as other investments designed to achieve high tax reliefs, experts said.

 

It comes after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in a £1.5 billion tax avoidance case last May involving a software company called MCashback. In recent years, money has poured into finance schemes offering high net-worth individuals tax savings through investments from clean energy to software and marine salvage. But the rulings show that the tide is turning, as courts reflect Parliamentâ??s growing disdain for â??tax mitigationâ? schemes.

 

â??The Revenue are winning a lot more cases than theyâ??re losing now, and that pattern is accelerating,â? one senior tax adviser told The Times. â??The courts are taking a purposive approach, which means they look at what Parliament intends.â?

 

The Eclipse 35 ruling comes as David Cameron promised yesterday not to have dealings with businessmen who were guilty of â??aggressive tax avoidanceâ?. The Prime Minister made a distinction between legitimate ways of minimising tax bills and practices he regards as wrong.

 

While investing in an â??enterprise investment schemeâ? or pension fund was legitimate, Mr Cameron said: â??There is a form of tax avoidance where people are almost specifically setting up a company in order to avoid tax rather than wanting to invest in start-ups.â?

 

He was also asked whether he would promise not to allow tax avoiders into his flat and have â??dealingsâ? with them. â??Generally speaking, yes, I think thatâ??s sensible,â? Mr Cameron replied.

The Times has established that two of Mr Cameronâ??s key business advisers were long-term investors in a film partnership currently under investigation by HMRC.

 

Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of Centrica, and Dick Olver, chairman of BAE Systems, held stakes in the investment vehicle Ingenious Film Partners 2 LLP for at least four years.

 

HMRC has an outstanding inquiry into Ingenious, examining whether its partnerships were trading with a view to profit or whether it was set up primarily for tax avoidance purposes. Ingenious strongly defends its schemes as commercial enterprises.

 

Tory MPs told The Times they are worried that the Prime Minister had blundered by making the remark, since many large companies, including those that give money to the Conservative Party, use techniques that Mr Cameron has now set himself against.

 

Eclipse 35 licensed the worldwide rights to Enchanted and Underdog for £503 million before licensing the rights back to Disney. The 289 members of Eclipse 35 claimed tax relief on the interest on the loans taken out to fund the deal.

 

But two judges found that Eclipse was â??not tradingâ? and therefore the members could not claim tax relief. â??It is difficult to see what services Eclipse 35 realistically offered to provide to the Disney group by way of business,â? they said.

 

â??Eclipse 35 did sub-license the rights to the distributor, but it had acquired the self-same rights a moment previously from Disney, and had acquired them on terms whereby they would be so sub-licensed.â?

 

A spokesman for Future Capital Partners, which set up Eclipse 35, said: â??We maintain that this investment is very much a commercial opportunity. We are disappointed with the decision and intend to vigorously appeal against it. Given that this is an ongoing process, and the decision has not yet been published, we cannot discuss the case in any further detail.â?

[stewarty 1,876]

Anyone in the Scottish press making the link?

[Jim1955 12]

Fs you might want to edit your post, tax avoidance is not illegal but tax evasion is. That said a good post.

[forlanssister 3,050]

Fs you might want to edit your post, tax avoidance is not illegal but tax evasion is. That said a good post.

 

I know that but I'm just quoting the Rangers Tax Case blog, wonder if they'll use the same interpretation when it comes to the shit on their own doorstep.

[Jim1955 12]

I know that but I'm just quoting the Rangers Tax Case blog, wonder if they'll use the same interpretation when it comes to the shit on their own doorstep.

 

I should have known that. Is there something similar on the horizon for the yahoos?

[Juancornetto 1]

What's the link to Celtic?

[forlanssister 3,050]

What's the link to Celtic?

 

Lawwell & Riley.

[Guest Nacho's his name]

And will we see this in the "media"? Ironic because we all know we won't hear a peep