HMRC appeals Rangers tribunal decision

Posted by Rachael Power PM | on Wed, 06/02/2013 - 11:45 1223 1 comment

HMRC has launched an appeal against a tax tribunal which found in favour of Rangers FC’s use of employee benefit trusts (EBTs).

The Revenue revealed its intentions to appeal the decision last December, when it started seeking leave to appeal.

Last year, the club won a case concerning its use of EBTs from 2001-2010, claiming the £49m in payments weren’t subject to tax as they weren’t wages.

Two out of three tribunal judges decided that only some of the payments were taxable, whereas many others could be seen as loans.

However, HMRC uphold that the scheme is illegal and the case will now be held at an upper tier tribunal.

Continued...

time to pay up Mr Murray 3 thanks

CULZANE | Fri, 08/02/2013 - 12:08 | Permalink

there are a few points of clarification that should be made about the article.

the appeal is against the Murray group, not Rangers, and they are still trading at the moment, though Lloyds TSB effectively own them if they converted their debt to equity.
Rangers / Murrqay Group admitted that 5 cases were not correct EBTs during the case and tax was to be paid on them
HMRC are looking to get a case decision which they can then use as a legal precedent to go after other football clubs as well as companies who have abused this tax law and manged to avoid millions of pounds of tax for very rich people while the rest of us have to pay for it through tax rises.
anyone readingf the judgement with an Accountancy background would realise that the minority view form the excellent Dr Poon, ( who was the only Accountant on the panel) basically looked at substance over form and ripped the case for Murray Group / Rangers to shreds. Her conclusions where much longer than the majority decision, she went into the mechanics of the case in a lot of detail and basically laid out the HMRC appeal case.
the majority decision was taken by 2 lawyers, who's view was based on a very narrow point of law form points made in the case form the main Murray group witness, whom they both agreed was not a credible witness.
as an aside, various witnesses form Rangers admitted that they did not give the SFA the 'side letters' given to the players which gave the players gurantees about getting their money and rangers would be liable for any tax due. tehy even admitted during this case that this was to circumvent the SFA registration process and effectively meant that these players were illegally registered and a tribunal was held last week headed by Lord Nimmo Smith to review these registrations and decide if Rangers would be stripped of titles for financial doping. ie the Lance Armstrong of Scottish Football.
there is wider relevance here as it also meant Rangers could have had players playing illegally in european competitions for a number of years and also prize money and champions league money they received should not have been due to them. this then brings up the compensation aspect agaisnt football authorities.
The current President of the SFA. (Scottish Football Association) was involved at Rangers in the registration of players to the SFA during the early years of this process and also received an EBT. His organisation will be in charge of the penalties to be given to Rangers which seems to be a very big conflict of interest.

Interesting times are ahead for a few people