HMRC Granted Leave to Appeal UTT Decision

[Rangersitis 0]

old politicians pulling strings that's all

 

If that is the case, their sphere of influence doesn't appear to reach very far.

[RANGERRAB 3,254]

If that is the case, their sphere of influence doesn't appear to reach very far.

 

You don't think a certain politician using his influence to get HMRC to chase a fictitious EBT tax debt making the oldco unsellable to reputable buyers whilst simultaneously getting the bank to exert its own financial constraints was an example of his 'sphere of influence' reaching very far? Strange analysis from you again

[buster. 4,808]

You don't think a certain politician using his influence to get HMRC to chase a fictitious EBT tax debt making the oldco unsellable to reputable buyers whilst simultaneously getting the bank to exert its own financial constraints was an example of his 'sphere of influence' reaching very far? Strange analysis from you again

 

Whilst you chase rainbows, your own house may get burgled.

[Rangersitis 0]

You don't think a certain politician using his influence to get HMRC to chase a fictitious EBT tax debt making the oldco unsellable to reputable buyers whilst simultaneously getting the bank to exert its own financial constraints was an example of his 'sphere of influence' reaching very far? Strange analysis from you again

 

You have been called out on these fantasies before and failed to provide anything to back up your claims. However, I will humour you here.

 

This masterplan was successful, so why the need for these continued appeals. How does that work in your colourful scenario?

[RANGERRAB 3,254]

You have been called out on these fantasies before and failed to provide anything to back up your claims. However, I will humour you here.

 

This masterplan was successful, so why the need for these continued appeals. How does that work in your colourful scenario?

 

Read post #18. It will all come out in the end once tha appeals process is exhausted. They're prolonging it for obvious reasons

[BrahimHemdani 1]

Maybe I am wrong here, but isn't this essentially a case between HMRC and MIH anyway, as the latter were handling the EBTs?

 

Generally, it would be great if someone could give a short summary of how this appeal stuff works and under which premisses.

 

As in, once Lord Nimmo Smith ruled on it, what would be HMRC's gain and aim to appeal this. What aim and gain would be appealing the rule of Lord Doherty. Is it only for specifics or is it about the whole case against us and "our" use of EBTs?

 

An independent commission, chaired by Lord Nimmo Smith, has ruled that Rangers breached SPL rules by failing to disclose to the league all payments made to players for playing activities.

 

The oldco have been fined around £250,000 by the Scottish Premier League after being found guilty of failing to correctly register players.

 

Lord Nimmo Smith has published his full decision, which runs to 42 pages. The key points from the ruling will be outlined below.

 

Summary:

 

Section 1 outlines the reason and decision.

 

"Between the years 2000 and 2011 The Rangers Football Club Plc (now known as RFC 2012 Plc (in liquidation) and referred to in the decision as “Oldco”), the owner and operator of Rangers Football Club (“Rangers FC”), entered into side-letter arrangements with a large number of its professional players under which Oldco undertook to make very substantial payments to an offshore employee benefit remuneration trust, with the intent that such payments should be used to fund payments to be made to such players in the form of loans." (p1)

 

•Rangers should have disclosed details of the arrangements.

 

"Those side-letter arrangements were required to be disclosed under the Rules of the Scottish Premier League (“SPL”) and the Scottish Football Association (“SFA”)." (p1)

 

•Rangers Oldco did not seek any advice.

 

"Oldco through its senior management decided that such side-letter arrangements should not be disclosed to the football authorities, and the Board of Directors sanctioned the making of payments under the side-letter arrangements without taking any legal or accountancy advice to justify the non-disclosure." (p1)

 

"Although the payments in this case were not themselves irregular and were not in breach of SPL or SFA Rules, the scale and extent of the proven contraventions of the disclosure rules require a substantial penalty to be imposed." (p1)

 

•Rangers were not judged to have gained any sporting advantage. None of the players were ineligible to play.

"Rangers FC did not gain any unfair competitive advantage from the contraventions of the SPL Rules in failing to make proper disclosure of the side-letter arrangements, nor did the non-disclosure have the effect that any of the registered players were ineligible to play, and for this and other reasons no sporting sanction or penalty should be imposed upon Rangers FC." (p1)

 

•Newco bears no responsibility for the rule breaches.

 

"There is no allegation that the current owner and operator of the club, The Rangers Football Club Limited (“Newco”), contravened the SPL Rules or could be held responsible for any breach by Oldco." (p1)

 

•A fine has been imposed on Oldco covering all rule breaches.

"In all the circumstances the Commission has imposed a fine of £250,000 on Oldco." (p1)

•The ruling explains the terms of its remit and the history surrounding the case. (p2-6)

 

•Oldco and newco declined the invitation to appear at preliminary hearings but Oldco, following a decision by the liquidators, sent representation to the main hearing. Newco then reconsidered its decision and was represented by the same lawyer as oldco. (p7)

 

 

*The ruling explains its own process and details the relevant rules of the SPL and SFA.

 

•Evidence on how the EBT scheme was implemented at Rangers is detailed. (p12-18)

 

•Consideration is given to whether or not EBTs are payments in regards to the SPL and SFA rules.

 

 

"The expressions “financial entitlement” and “payment” must be construed in the context of the relevant Articles and Rules; but in our opinion they also require to be interpreted in the wider context in order to establish their purpose and to be applied in such a way as to fulfil that purpose." (p22)

•EBT benefits were considered by the tribunal to be payments.

 

"Each side-letter issued to a Specified Player clearly constituted a contractual agreement: the unanimous view of the Tax Tribunal also was that it was an “obligation”.

 

"Accordingly, in the case of each of the Specified Players in lists 1A and 1B, the EBT arrangements were an essential element of “the Player’s full financial entitlement” within the meaning of Rule 10.2.3." (p23)

 

"If it had not been intended that the player would directly benefit from the EBT arrangements then there is no reason to believe that the player would have agreed to accept the overall financial package offered by Oldco." (p24)

 

*On the eligibility of players: The SPL alleges “such that Rangers FC was in breach of a condition of the registration of such players and such players were ineligible to play in official matches for Rangers FC” (p26)

 

•Sandy Bryson, Head of Registrations at the Scottish FA, gives evidence that registrations remain unless revoked and are not automatically invalid due to rule breaches.

•The SPL explain a different take on registration.

 

 

"[sPL lawyer] Mr McKenzie explained to us that SPL Rule D1.13 had hitherto been understood to mean that if, at the time of registration, a document was not lodged as required, the consequence was that a condition of registration was broken and the player automatically became ineligible to play in terms of SPL Rule D1.11." (p26)

 

•Mr McKenzie then accepts that the rules could not allow a player to be automatically ineligible.

"'He accepted that no provision of the Rules enabled the Board of the SPL retrospectively to terminate the registration of the player." (p26)

 

•The tribunal states that the Scottish FA approach to the rules is clear and the SPL should apply their rules in the same manner.

 

"We are satisfied that the registration of the Specified Players with the SPL was valid from the outset, and accordingly that they were eligible to play in official matches." (p27)

 

"This is an important finding, as it means that there was no instance shown of Rangers FC fielding an ineligible player. "

 

•Report then details delays in receiving relevant information from Rangers oldco.

 

 

•Lord Nimmo Smith describes the sanctions available to the Commission.

 

 

"We wish to emphasise, that the SPL did not seek the imposition by us of any specific sanction". (p30)

 

•Report states it is not a breach of SPL rules to minimise tax liability and it accepts Tax tribunal ruling that EBTs are lawful.

 

"What we are concerned with is the fact that the side-letters issued to the Specified Players, in the course of the operation of the EBT scheme, were not disclosed to the SPL and the SFA as required by their respective Rules" (p31)

 

"Oldco’s failure to disclose the side-letters to the SPL and the SFA was at least partly motivated by a wish not to risk prejudicing the tax advantages of the EBT scheme, we are unable to reach the conclusion that this led to any competitive advantage." (p31)

 

•No sporting advantage means the Commission did not consider any sport-related punishment.

 

"We therefore proceed on the basis that the breach of the rules relating to disclosure did not give rise to any sporting advantage, direct or indirect. We do not therefore propose to consider those sanctions which are of a sporting nature." (p31)

•The directors of Oldco are criticised for failing to follow rules on disclosing payments.

 

"The directors of Oldco must bear a heavy responsibility for this. While there is no question of dishonesty, individual or corporate, we nevertheless take the view that the nondisclosure must be regarded as deliberate, in the sense that a decision was taken that the sideletters need not be or should not be disclosed."

 

*A heavy financial penalty is deemed to be appropriate but the Commission recognises that it may never be recovered from Oldco.

 

"Although we are well aware that, as Oldco is in liquidation with an apparently massive deficiency for creditors (even leaving aside a possible reversal of the Tax Tribunal decision on appeal), in practice any fine is likely to be substantially irrecoverable and to the extent that it is recovered the cost will be borne by the creditors of Oldco, we nevertheless think it essential to mark the seriousness of the contraventions with a large financial penalty." (p33)

 

•Final result

 

" In the result, therefore, and for all the foregoing reasons:

 

(1) We find the breaches in Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3 (except Issue 3© and the concluding passage of Issue 3(b)starting with “such that Rangers FC . . . .”) and Issue 4 proved against RFC 2012 Plc (in liquidation), formerly The Rangers Football Club Plc. (2) We fine RFC 2012 Plc (in liquidation) £250,000 in respect of Issues 1 to 3, and admonish it in respect of Issue 4. (3) We make no separate finding of breach by Rangers FC and impose no penalty on it.

 

http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/rangers/215802-key-points-from-lord-nimmo-smiths-ruling-on-rangers/

 

Someone else can dig out the Tax Tribunal decisions but for what it is worth my take on your questions are that:

 

1. 
   
2. HMRC so called "Big Tax Case" primarily is against oldco because oldco paid the monies into the EBT's; the MIH issues basically are irrelevant to oldco.
   
3. HMRC are not appealing against Lord Nimmo Smith's decision, which has nothing whatsoever to do with them; they are appealing against the Tax Tribunal decisions.
   
4. The reason that HMRC are pursuing this has little if anything to do with oldco or newco for that matter; it is because if they win then it will set a precedent that they can apply in a large number of other cases and the converse is also true.
   

 

NB: There is some confusion in the above report because it appears that the word "Tribunal" sometimes refers to the Tax Authorities and sometimes the Commission led by Lord Nimmo Smith.

 

However, I think it is very important to recognise in all this that whilst Lord Nimmo Smith ruled that in terms of the SFA and SPL Rules "the EBT arrangements were an essential element of “the Player’s full financial entitlement” "; the failure by oldco was in not declaring the payments and side letters but that that did not render the players ineligible to play.

 

The Tax Tribunals on the other hand have held that ultimately the payments from the EBT's were indeed loans and therefore no Income Tax or NIC was due. That is unpalatable to HMRC which is why they continue to pursue the case.

[Rangersitis 0]

Read post #18. It will all come out in the end once tha appeals process is exhausted. They're prolonging it for obvious reasons

 

If it is all being manipulated by this Machiavellian character, why would he allow anything damaging to come out?

 

What are these obvious reasons?

[der Berliner 3,234]

Thanks for taking the time to clear this up, BH!

[BrahimHemdani 1]

You don't think a certain politician using his influence to get HMRC to chase a fictitious EBT tax debt making the oldco unsellable to reputable buyers whilst simultaneously getting the bank to exert its own financial constraints was an example of his 'sphere of influence' reaching very far? Strange analysis from you again

 

Some things are self evident here:

 

• The potential outcome of the BTC/EBT was indeed a major factor if not THE major factor in rendering the Club almost unsellable.
  
• 
  
• The Clubs that comprise the SFA and the SPL were clearly in a position to influence the actions and indeed their Boards were in a position to instruct the actions of their Executives in their pursuit of oldco.
  

 

But to suggest that there is some link between an unnamed politician and the actions of HMRC and LBG or that there is some causal link between the actions of HMRC and the actions of the SFA/SPL is fanciful at best and perhaps there is good reason why you do not to name this person in an open forum.

 

Perhaps he is the same person who caused UEFA to decide that Legia's game against Celtic was forfeit and thus give Celtic a second bite at the CL pie?

[der Berliner 3,234]

Some things are self evident here:

 

• The potential outcome of the BTC/EBT was indeed a major factor if not THE major factor in rendering the Club almost unsellable.
  
• 
  
• The Clubs that comprise the SFA and the SPL were clearly in a position to influence the actions and indeed their Boards were in a position to instruct the actions of their Executives in their pursuit of oldco.
  

 

But to suggest that there is some link between an unnamed politician and the actions of HMRC and LBG or that there is some causal link between the actions of HMRC and the actions of the SFA/SPL is fanciful at best and perhaps there is good reason why you do not to name this person in an open forum.

 

Perhaps he is the same person who caused UEFA to decide that Legia's game against Celtic was forfeit and thus give Celtic a second bite at the CL pie?

 

No need to polarize folk here. One can rightfully be suspicious about many things that go on at the SFA, SP(F)L, and UEFA (incl. FARE) for years. In an ideal world, HMRC (or something like the BBC) should be regarded as impartial and open minded about anything that concerns us. But we do not live in an ideal world and far too many decisions have rightly caused upset and continue to do so. And that has nothing to do with paranoia either, as you can verify this easily enough. Someone actually done a rather informative chart a few years back ...