Rangers 'Tax Decision' Verdict Next Month

[chilledbear 16]

According to the BBC

 

Will the verdict be known by the main participants?

 

 

Rangers tax tribunal verdict to be announced 'in October'

 

Rangers applied for insolvency in July

BBC Scotland has learned that a verdict on the First Tier Tax tribunal between Rangers and HM Revenue & Customs is expected in October.

 

In 2010, the previous owners of Rangers contested an unpaid tax relating to the use of Employee Benefit Trusts, believed to be in the region on £49m.

 

The club entered administration in February 2012 over a separate tax issue and applied for insolvency in July.

 

The Scottish Courts Service said an announcement will be made next month.

Edited September 12, 2012 by chilledbear

[der Berliner 3,744]

A) Curiously, they make no difference with this thing as they usually like to, i.e. "newco" and "oldco".

 

B) Rangers applied for insolvency in July? Half-facts again, as Rangers surely did not apply for insolvency in July. If anything, it was RFC2012 plc and the administrators.

 

C) ... it is utterly annoying that the BBC mixes information up as it please them.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

if its this close I suspect rangers know the result. I once saw something that said rangers would know 90 days before the official announcement.

 

of course this could just be rangers being told with the announcement coming later or the thing I saw may be wrong.

[pete 2,499]

I wonder what the SPL will do if the payments are found legal. Do the SPL\SFA have them down as illegal in their rules.

What actually are we accused of? Have they found a double contract or is this all based on the ramblings of an old man and a statement from the BBC "We have seen evidence"?

[Blue Moon 1,291]

Good piece here from Chris Graham.

 

Interesting Conflicts – SPL EBT Hypocrisy

 

 

September 12, 2012Leave a comment

 

The news that Celtic have been cleared of any culpability for the EBT they used for Juninho in the 2004/2005 season comes as no surprise to those of us who have followed this case and the people prosecuting it. However, I do feel it is worth highlighting as it is yet another example of the hypocrisy and corruption at the SPL.

 

It is worth noting some things regarding the operation of EBT schemes. The issue of whether tax was paid on the EBTs has nothing to do with the SPL investigation into Rangers. The issue is purely whether the loans from the EBT scheme for players were declared to the SPL and SFA and whether they required to be declared.

 

It is clear that Rangers did not specifically declare them because they do not consider them to be payments. The whole point of the scheme is that they are loans. That leaves us only with the question of whether they required to be declared i.e were they payments.

 

Now, those who demand Rangers be punished like to muddy the waters by talking about HMRC, unpaid tax, sporting advantage and higher moral considerations. The only consideration for the SPL, however, is were they payments and were they declared.

 

The SPL have decided that Rangers have a case to answer. Today they have decided that Celtic do not. This is curious in relation to the above since, on the 23rd May, the BBC claim to have written to all SPL clubs asking about use of EBTs. The following is exactly what they were told.

 

“BBC Scotland Investigates wrote to all of the Scottish Premier League’s member clubs and asked whether they had ever operated an EBT scheme.

 

Celtic confirmed that it established one EBT scheme in April 2005, which BBC Scotland understands was for the benefit of the Brazilian midfielder Juninho Paulista. The scheme was worth £765,000 but the club did not declare the trust payment to the Scottish Football Association or the Scottish Premier League.

 

The payments made to the trust were declared in Celtic’s annual report for 2004/2005, but in 2008 the club became aware of an event giving rise to a potential tax liability which was subsequently paid after agreement with HMRC.

 

The remaining 10 SPL clubs replied and confirmed they had never set up an EBT scheme for any of their employees.”

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18169502

 

Now it is quite clear from this that Celtic did operate an EBT and they did not declare it to the SPL or SFA as part of Juninho’s registration. This makes the case absolutely identical to the Rangers case. So why is there no case to answer?

 

That is a difficult question. Celtic like to claim it is because they paid the tax that HMRC felt was due for the use of the EBT. This appears to be true but does not in any way impact on the registration issue. Either the EBT was declared on the registration or it was not. The issue of tax paid is one for HMRC.

 

When considering this, we need to know who actually investigated on behalf of the SPL. At the moment we don’t. It is well documented that Rod McKenzie of Harper MacLeod has conducted the investigation into Rangers. Harper Macleod are the SPL lawyers on this matter so it seems likely to be the case that they would have examined the Celtic case too. They can’t have though, because that would be as clear a case of conflict of interest as you could ever get. Harper Macleod are also Celtic lawyers and it would be unethical and utterly absurd for them to have been involved here.

 

So who at the SPL decided there was no case to answer? Was another law firm employed to investigate Celtic? If so, then why was this firm not also used to investigate Rangers given the issues with Rod McKenzie and Celtic’s lawyers doing so? If the BBC information is correct then how did these nameless investigators come to the conclusion that the evidence did not need to be examined by an ‘independent’ tribunal? It is clearly an identical situation.

 

Let me be absolutely clear. I think the SPL made the correct decision regarding Celtic. The idea that a sporting advantage was gained from EBTs is absurd. EBTs could never have been declared to the SPL because doing so would have rendered the whole point of them, a tax benefit, unavailable.

 

In a competition where there is no salary cap on players, the rules on registration exist purely to protect players and ensure that in areas of dispute the players can show exactly what they are contractually due. To my knowledge, no Rangers or Celtic players are complaining that they did not receive payments they were due.

 

The SPL investigation is a sham. It is an excuse to further attack Rangers. There is no sporting advantage, no ‘financial doping’, no match fixing. The fact that a player is being paid is important because that is why registration is needed – how much they are being paid is totally irrelevant. These claims are absurd and have been made specifically to inflame public opinion ahead of a pre-determined verdict.

 

If the SPL got it absolutely correct on Celtic then question should be why are they pursuing Rangers? The answer to that lies with the people conducting the witch hunt and it is about time the media in this country started doing their job and asked the required questions.

[trueblue 64 57]

It is possible that we get found not guilty with the ebt case, but the spl will still pursue us for titles or cash, probably both knowing those twisted cunts.

[der Berliner 3,744]

Who is the governing body of the SPL, i.e. would e.g. investigate any conflict of interest cast aside by the SPL? Who needs to be made aware of this whole stuff from beyond Scotland?

[Zappa 0]

Who is the governing body of the SPL, i.e. would e.g. investigate any conflict of interest cast aside by the SPL? Who needs to be made aware of this whole stuff from beyond Scotland?

 

FIFA

UEFA

SFA

SPL

 

In that order and every single one of them is rife with corruption.