Court of Session rules in favour of HMRC + Rangers Issue Statement

[boabie 230]

I wouldn't put "anything" beyond the SFA/SPFL.

 

The campaign by all the usual suspects to have the SFA take retrospective action has already started again. They won't be happy until Rangers are absolutely hammered. There was always more to the chair shuffling at Hampden while we were out of the system than simply making sure that those of a sellik persuasion had an unfair representation. There will be more to come I'll predict.

[RabiDuck 89]

Can we just take our ball and leave? Go play somewhere else? English conference perhaps?

[ian1964 10,415]

Rangers cheated and the truth is unpalatable, the damage irreversible

 

Graham Spiers

 

The word “cheating” has become highly charged and emotive around the subject of Rangers FC.

 

The club’s directors are embarrassed at its use. The club’s fans spit fury at the very suggestion.

 

The ignominy of “cheating” being foisted on Rangers around its tax affairs has become detested, and with good reason. A club that historically afforded itself a sense of dignity simply could not live with being seen to take part in some Arthur Daley-type practices.

 

This is all germane again following the judgement in the Court of Session today that the pre-2012 Rangers indulged in years of illegal tax avoidance.

 

The Lords Carloway, Menzies and Drummond Young took a surprisingly tart view of it all, cutting through impenetrable legal subterfuge to reach “a common sense” view which has been held by most people on the outside for years.

 

The Court of Session said it was blindingly obvious that the millions of pounds hived off to Rangers players via dubious “side letters” in the years between 2001 and 2010 were earnings which should have been subject to tax.

 

The use of EBTs for tax avoidance – by which the Queen’s revenue collectors could be thwarted – was by no means peculiar to Rangers. It had become a rampant racket right across Britain. Thousands of companies used the tactic before EBTs were finally outlawed.

 

But in Scottish football, the spotlight fell on Rangers. HMRC pursued the club vigorously, because the Revenue’s policy is to mercilessly claw back the tens of millions it feels the national exchequer has been denied.

 

Rangers, it has to be said, have fought a very impressive legal case. These Court of Session lords might have deemed the wrongdoing to be obvious, but competent lawyers are capable of winning almost any argument.

 

In this context I have never forgotten what one prominent Rangers fan in the media said to me four years ago: “The entire world knows that Rangers have been at it with EBTs … but getting lawyers to prove it will be another matter.”

 

The judgement of illegal activity by Rangers – if or when this saga is concluded – will leave an ungodly mess to be sorted.

 

The club paid the ultimate price in 2012 – liquidation. That event has left Scottish football poisoned, with acrimonious debate about Rangers’ history going into overdrive in recent years. But the “newco Rangers” – whatever your interpretation of that – will not be financially affected.

 

Dave King has subsequently said he wants to “put the old Rangers back into the old company”. Heaven alone knows what that actually means, never mind whether it can be done.

 

A guilty Rangers – if this is the end of the matter - also leaves the Scottish FA in a precarious position. Retrospective title-stripping looks a futile business to me, but it goes on in other sports, and the SFA stand accused of being timorous in the face of the wrongdoing.

 

Is title-stripping an option? Yes, it is, though I wouldn’t assent to it. The misdeeds have been done, and Rangers FC paid a high price.

 

What is to be gained in trampling back over history and spearing a liquidated football club with further punishment? There always will be an asterisk in the public mind beside these dodgy Rangers years. I cannot see the benefit in the retrospective expunging of trophies.

 

As for Sir David Murray’s business empire, which actually ran Rangers FC’s tax avoidance, it has been largely scaled back, with various subsidiaries sold off. Doubtless there could be further legal repercussions brewing, which could conceivably reach the Supreme Court.

 

Murray will feel greatly pained over this saga. It serves little to go back over his fateful involvement in it all. He will go to his grave nursing sorrow over what befell the old Rangers. It is as grim a story as Scottish football has known.

 

Today was meant to be about another Rangers story. The club has just announced an annual loss of £7.5m as King and co strive to put Rangers on an even keel again.

 

Is King ever going to make a significant cash injection in the club? Rangers fans remain hopeful but the evidence for it is still flimsy.

 

The past, meanwhile, haunts the club and its support. The fact is, if Rangers FC had not tried to cut corners in paying tax, none of this agony would have occurred.

 

The truth remains unpalatable. And the damage is irreversible.

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/13944277.Spiers_on_Sport__The_truth_hurts__but_not_as_much_as_the_damage_done/

[Oleg_Mcnoleg 50]

Seems to me that we haven't had a sporting advantage. How much did we save by not paying taxes? 20m odd? HMRC ramped it up to 46m in penalties but how can you have penalties when a first and upper tribunal think you did no wrong? If they get it wrong then how are lesser mortals supposed to get it right.

 

In the meantime we've lost more than £46m and Celtic have been handed 4 titles, and maybe more - so where is the sporting advantage?

 

Seems to me that if HMRC had done the "common sense" thing and settled for a reasonable amount - say the actual amount that would have been due, then we would have paid it. And so again, where would the sporting advantage be?

 

The premise is that we couldn't have otherwise afforded the players but the actually reality for those who don't have a twister and bitter view, is that we COULD have afforded the the players AND the tax, we would just have had a bigger debt to pay off - and as such would have been much better off now.

 

The whole advantage thing is just erroneous.

 

We used EBTs on Bob Malcolm, Mo Ross and Egil Ostenstad. Not sure how that's supposed to constitute an unfair advantage

[RabiDuck 89]

We used EBTs on Bob Malcolm, Mo Ross and Egil Ostenstad. Not sure how that's supposed to constitute an unfair advantage

 

Unfair advantage to Celtic perhaps?

[Bearman 9]

[SteveC 150]

That Spiers paragraph above re "prominent Rangers man in the media" seems dreadfully convenient for his blatant attempt to stir up title stripping fever despite his feigned objection to same. You'd almost think that he was making it up.

Edited November 4, 2015 by SteveC

[ian1964 10,415]

What if the Upper Tribunal Overturns the FTT Verdict?

 

A sensible question arising from the Commission decision is as follows.

 

The Commission based part of its reasoning upon the findings in fact and law of the FTT. What would happen if the Upper Tribunal reversed the FTT verdict?

 

The answer is simple.

 

Nothing.

 

I say that because of a concession made by Mr McKenzie for the SPL at the hearing before the Commission.

 

Paragraph 104 of the determination includes the following statement:-

 

The Tax Tribunal has held (subject to appeal) that Oldco was acting within the law in setting up and operating the EBT scheme. The SPL presented no argument to challenge the decision of the majority of the Tax Tribunal and Mr McKenzie stated expressly that for all purposes of this Commission’s Inquiry and Determination the SPL accepted that decision as it stood, without regard to any possible appeal by HMRC. Accordingly we proceed on the basis that the EBT arrangements were lawful.

 

So, if the Upper Tribunal decides that the FTT majority got it wrong, it will not affect this case. Mr McKenzie has made clear that the Commission decision is based on the case as it stood following the FTT.

 

A damning verdict at any appeal, if there ever was such an outcome, would not affect this case. The SPL has decided, even though an appeal is pending, to stick with what is present at this point.

 

https://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/is-the-nimmo-smith-commission-decision-binding-on-the-spl/

[Oleg_Mcnoleg 50]

Unfair advantage to Celtic perhaps?

 

Indeed. Perhaps they should look at awarding us the titles we missed out on in this period.

[BEARGER 1,829]

 

Jackie McNamara

20th June 2012