Tax officials blamed for the downfall of Rangers

[Bluedell 5,625]

3 hours ago, Redwhite+blue said:

 

A CVA rescues the company as a going concern, the book value of the freehold properties in the last set of accounts was £109 million. On that basis the going concern value would have been extremely high, who was really going to purchase it on a going concern valuation.

Freehold property book value was £39 million. 

[RANGERRAB 3,667]

I’ve maintained all along this was a yahoo plot inside & outside HMRC.

 

The aim was to keep Rangers in a financial straitjacket for years, unsellable & with the bank in control 

 

But there were 2 events they hadn’t planned for:-1) whyte 2)winning the BTC

 

For me, Whyte’s plan was to force an administration & try get HMRC(& others) to settle everything owed via a CVA. And Rangers emerge debt free. It was high risk, unlikely to work & didn’t 

 

Firstly he had to force an administration. He wasn’t going to get it via the BTC or wee tax case. So he withheld tax/NI to force HMRC to the table.And it worked.

 

But the yahoo plot had made its first error. It allowed Whyte to go for almost 6 months without paying tax/NI.(other clubs only got 1or 2 months). They had to build up sufficient debt to block a CVA because the BTC had been appealed & there was no guarantee they’d win it & indeed HMRC lost the FTTT & UTTT. 

 

Winning the BTC will now involve BDO asking all sorts of questions about penalties & whether or not they can be applied. And no doubt also asking about the length of time Whyte never paid tax.

 

As we saw last week with bizarre panicky tweets one or two seem very edgy indeed within HMRC. 2020 should be interesting....

 

 

 

 

[der Berliner 3,744]

What was and still is baffling - HMRC likewise never blocked or even attempted to chase Whyte when he walked on British soil again?

 

 

Quote

 

Ex-Rangers owner Craig Whyte was being chased by the taxman for £3.74m BEFORE he started his catastrophic reign at Ibrox

HMRC had instructed debt enforcers to chase Whyte with a bill for almost £4million and threaten him with bankruptcy in May 2011 - the same month that he bought Rangers.

 

By

Keith Jackson

• 07:30, 5 AUG 2014
• Updated07:39, 5 AUG 2014

THE taxman was chasing Craig Whyte for £3.7million before he took over Rangers.

 

HMRC focused on Whyte’s personal finances and made several failed attempts to get him to pay his dues before, during and after his catastrophic reign at Ibrox.

The taxman regarded Whyte as a “flight risk”, fearing he might flee the country without settling his huge tax bill.

 

Documents seen by the Record show:

* The authorities instructed debt enforcers to chase Whyte with a bill for almost £4million and threaten him with bankruptcy in May 2011, the same month that he bought Rangers.

* It was the culmination of a probe begun the previous year when the taxman learned Whyte had returned to the UK in 2005.

* Whyte was continually warned he was failing to submit satisfactory tax returns and risked being fined.

* He actually claimed at one stage to have a UK taxable worth of just £24 in accrued bank interest.

* Yet when he struck the notorious deal with Ticketus for funds to finance his Rangers takeover, he gave the firm a personal guarantee he was worth nearly £33million.

 

This “guarantee”, which was obtained by HMRC, helped them calculate Whyte’s £3,741,835.29 tax bill but he continued stalling tactics to avoid coughing up.

At the same time he was able to run up a further £15million in unpaid taxes and penalties during his nine months in charge of Rangers.

Whyte had bought Rangers for £1 from Sir David Murray in May 2011, while agreeing to wipe out the club’s £18million debts.

But on February 14, 2012, he made a legal move to have the Ibrox outfit placed into administration.

By then the club’s debt had rocketed to around £50million.

HMRC then rejected a Company Voluntary Arrangement, forcing the club’s owners to be liquidated in a move which also saw Rangers having to start again in the lowest tier of Scottish football.

David Murray has long blamed the taxman for the demise of Rangers, saying the spectre of the Big Tax Case – a potential bill of between £46m and £100million, hanging over the club forced his hand in selling up.

But a sizeable proportion of Rangers fans still hold Murray at least partly responsible for the club’s demise, arguing he should not have sold to Whyte, whose reputation had already been questioned.

Ultimately, Rangers won the Big Tax Case when a tribunal ruled Employee Benefit Trusts paid to players were in fact loans not subject to tax – and HMRC’s appeal against that judgment was rejected this year.

Fans remain furious at the taxman for bringing the case in the first place, and the latest documents from July 2012 obtained by the Record are unlikely to quell their anger.

They show HMRC began building their case against Whyte from the moment his proposed take over first hit the headlines in November 2010, six months before he was eventually handed the keys to Ibrox.

The paperwork from the taxman’s high net worth unit states: “HMRC became aware that Whyte had returned to live in the UK when the press carried stories in 2010 that he was potentially going to purchase Rangers Football Club plc.

“HMRC discovered that Whyte had been back in the UK since 2005. He did not notify HMRC of his return to the UK, nor did he complete tax returns.”

The documents go on to chronicle various atttempts by the taxman to force Whyte to detail his finances and warnings of fines he faces if he fails to comply.

In the absence of his co-operation, the tax office made their own calculations and issued Whyte with demands for £1million for the financial year 2006-07 and £1.2million for the following year.

Whyte did finally submitted some returns. But the documents note: “The returns contained entries in respect of net UK bank interest of £24 for 2006-07 and £491 for 2007-08.”

This pattern continues throughout the reports, until a damning revelation centring on Whyte’s takeover of Rangers when he secured funding from Ticketus to head off the club’s future debt in exchange for money from season ticket sales.

Presumably to convince Ticketus he was a genuine businessman, Whyte gave his own word that he was good for the investment, according to the HMRC documents.

They state: “The personal guarantee included a statement of Whyte’s net worth, signed by him, which showed he had net assets with a value of £32,956,843.”

This was the evdience HMRC needed to slap Whyte with the tax bill of £3,741,835.29 at the time of his takeover.

Just four days after he posed for pictures with the SPL trophy at Rugby Park following a thrilling last day climax to the league campaign, a letter was written to Whyte by HMRC’s higher debt manager detailing the claim and giving him seven days to pay in full.

Whyte was warned that a warrant would be served on him by a sheriff officer who would also provide him with a leaflet entitled Dealing with Debt to help him assess his options.

The letter continues: “If the debt remains unpaid, I will arrange to present a sequestration petition in your local sheriff court. The effect of this is that you are likely to be made bankrupt and a Trustee appointed to sell your assets and pay your creditors.”

Even then Whyte continued to stall, appealing to a tribunal against the judgment. As HMRC do not discuss private tax dealings, the outcome as yet remains unknown.

But the emergence of HMRC’s serious concerns about Whyte before his takeover prompted further anger among senior Rangers figures.

Alastair Johnston, Rangers chairman at the time, pleaded with Murray not to sell the club to Whyte. He was subsequently axed.

Presented with the revelations last night, he said: “On the back of this, I would welcome a full-scale, independent investigation into the actions of HMRC around the Rangers issue.”

Former director Paul Murray added: “I have always said that what has happened to Rangers has been nothing short of disgraceful.

“The club has been the victim of a fraud. A lot of people have made a lot of money at the club’s expense and it has to end.

“It is in the public interest to find out exactly what has happened and then to take action. Justice must be done and be seen to be done.”

 

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/ex-rangers-owner-craig-whyte-being-3992415

 

Given the amount of info leaked by HMRC since 2012, it is rather curious that nothing about this came out in 2011/2012 ... and IMHO leads to the conclusion that it might have been withheld at the time for heinous reasons.

[compo 7,041]

4 hours ago, der Berliner said:

What was and still is baffling - HMRC likewise never blocked or even attempted to chase Whyte when he walked on British soil again?

 

 

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/ex-rangers-owner-craig-whyte-being-3992415

 

Given the amount of info leaked by HMRC since 2012, it is rather curious that nothing about this came out in 2011/2012 ... and IMHO leads to the conclusion that it might have been withheld at the time for heinous reasons.

I wonder who he borrowed the pound from and if they ever got it back