Have HMRC put a bomb under Scottish football and got away scot free?

[Doc 280]

 

I can't see how a company which is pretty much also a pillar of the nation should be callously put into such a vulnerable position with threats of hugely inflated tax invoices it cannot possibly afford and publicly refusing to consider alleviating the possible tax burden by negotiation.

 

This allowed the company to be taken over by a man of low ethics who stripped it bare and deliberately did not pay tax that was due, thereby leading to HMRC putting the company into administration and with the refusal of a CVA, into liquidation.

 

 

Compare HMRC's actions with respect to Rangers with their actions against Portsmouth. They accepted the Portsmouth CVA that reportedly had a value of less than 5p in the pound. That's close to or less than the CVA we offered. Leeds got away with a similar settlement as well.

 

In both cases the repercussions for the English leagues were no way near as serious as they have been in Scotland.

 

Of course you could also labour the point about how the FA and the English leagues have acted with respect to Portsmouth (no threat to strip them of their FA cup win) and how the powers that be in Scotland have treated us. No consistency or integrity there.

[Blue Moon 1,151]

Compare HMRC's actions with respect to Rangers with their actions against Portsmouth. They accepted the Portsmouth CVA that reportedly had a value of less than 5p in the pound. That's close to or less than the CVA we offered. Leeds got away with a similar settlement as well.

 

In both cases the repercussions for the English leagues were no way near as serious as they have been in Scotland.

 

Of course you could also labour the point about how the FA and the English leagues have acted with respect to Portsmouth (no threat to strip them of their FA cup win) and how the powers that be in Scotland have treated us. No consistency or integrity there.

 

I am not justifying HMRC but our case was different. We didn't pay tax and were using taxes as working capital.

[simplythebest 0]

Indeed, HMRC saw us as deliberately withholding tax under Murray and Whyte.

[calscot 0]

Indeed, HMRC saw us as deliberately withholding tax under Murray and Whyte.

 

I can't see how that can be applied to Murray, although it's obvious with Whyte. But then the cause and effect is that they gave us Whyte - and should a club's company be liquidated for one season of one man that they opened our door for?

 

Murray did not deliberately withold money, he just used an HMRC tax rule for something it wasn't really designed for.

[Zappa 0]

I hadn't thought of the comparison with the arts before, that's a very good point. Probably there would have been an appeal to the nation to save Rangers for Britain or something, like they did with that Canova statue some years back. But then, football has always been the slummy relation, looked down on by rugby/admin types.

 

On the evening of the Tour de France stage that was sabotaged by tacks thrown on the road, Wiggins suggested that the idiots who did it should go and watch a football match instead of cycling.

[simplythebest 0]

I can't see how that can be applied to Murray, although it's obvious with Whyte. But then the cause and effect is that they gave us Whyte - and should a club's company be liquidated for one season of one man that they opened our door for?

 

Murray did not deliberately withold money, he just used an HMRC tax rule for something it wasn't really designed for.

If they really believe the 75 million bill was an accident then I think they'd have been more willing to deal.

[Guest Dutchy]

I certainly believe that HMRC found it easier to attsck a Scottish club as opposed to any English institution.

 

But by far and away what's caused our present and more immediate problems has been Lloyds bank. I'm hoping that some information will come out in the police investigations of the SDM/Whyte transaction, forced, IMO by a pushy bank.

 

The tax case was alawys going to be there, and it happens that it still is, even though the SPL want to punish us without any decision being made as yet.

[calscot 0]

If they really believe the 75 million bill was an accident then I think they'd have been more willing to deal.

 

What £75m? You're saying we didn't pay £75m of taxes? Where do you get that from?

 

As far as I know, we didn't pay about an average of £2.3m a year for ten years in taxes as we "accidentally" thought we had a workable tax avoidance scheme.

 

The rest was in trumped up interest and penalties. I can't believe how people fall for the guff from the media; really, if you're a regular on here you should be a bit more on the ball.

 

How was it deliberate? Did Rangers deliberately evade tax while publishing this action in the accounts? The whole point of this is not what Rangers actually did, it is whether the payments were notionally discretionary or obligatory.

 

That fact alone shows how stupid the tax laws are, and the point is that it can't actually be proven one way or the other without using some kind of mind reading.

 

What will happen is someone will decide what they THINK is the probable case.

Edited July 23, 2012 by calscot

[simplythebest 0]

What £75m? You're saying we didn't pay £75m of taxes? Where do you get that from?

 

As far as I know, we didn't pay about an average of £2.3m a year for ten years in taxes as we "accidentally" thought we had a workable tax avoidance scheme.

 

The rest was in trumped up interest and penalties. I can't believe how people fall for the guff from the media; really, if you're a regular on here you should be a bit more on the ball.

 

How was it deliberate? Did Rangers deliberately evade tax while publishing this action in the accounts? The whole point of this is not what Rangers actually did, it is whether the payments were notionally discretionary or obligatory.

It's HMRC's point of view we're discussing here.

 

I'm not really offering my own personal opinion because I don't know what to think, only that I put very little faith in David Murray having done anything right anymore.

[bluebear54 0]

I knew someone would come up with this and I actually tried to pre-empt it in the post - obviously I was too subtle.

 

If you're council removed your door while you were away and you were burgled - you'd only blame the burglar?

 

 

I suppose it wasn't quite removal of the door but HMRC created a situation where we were so desperate to keep our house we were threatened to lose that we actually invited the burglar in thinking he was going to help.

 

HMRC basically handed us to Whyte on a plate and we got shafted by him and then they put the nails in the coffin. They also got shafted but don't care as they have their example.

 

The point is the government is not supposed to behead some citizens for a technical offence as a deterrent for others - not in a democracy. They have not acted ethically in the slightest. None of what they did sounds even a wee bit fair.

 

But you want to ignore that and blame a con man who took advantage of the situation. We know what Whyte did, but he is a bit part in a far larger game.

 

Fair enough Calscot I stand corrected.