Rangers Banter Archive November 22 2012

22 Nov 2012 20:43:06
yes we won the biggest fight of our lives , but can anyone tell me why any of these ebt benifactors who were vastly overpaid were actually needing loans , lets get real this isnt over by a long shot i fear

You lost the biggest fight of your lives when your club entered administration and now liquidation. However, i do agree with you that this isnt over. My worry wouldnt be HMRC appealing although that is a factor. I would be more concerned about an ex player listening to Neil Patey saying that these "loans" might only be repaid on the death of the beneficiary and could be taken from his estate. I wonder how Barry Ferguson feels when he hears that potentially £2M might be taken from his family when he dies!

22 Nov 2012 18:21:32
It's all gone a wee bit quiet from BBC Radio Scotland's Gers bashers: Spence, Cowan and English.

Aye bet they are sick

And Graham Spiers

If murray never withheld documents&used delaying tactics,your defunct club yous loved might still exist,1huge own goal.....stevo

Once again stevo, utter nonsense. Murray didn't with-hold anything. Mr Red (an accountant from the firm that did Rangers books) did and still, hmrc had all the documents required by 2009, so well before this years fiasco and in no way responsible for the delay in verdict.

We rangers fans and our club have been called some pretty disgusting stuff by your lot for a while now, a week after the verdict and still not one of you is man enough to apologies. Instead we get haw haw youz ar deed fer nutin, pure pashing masel wi laffin.

Where's your humility?

Stevo - if somebody comes up to you and says "you owe me £10k unless you can prove you don't" , would you just pay up or would you say "your getting nothing pal until you can prove why I owe you it". I am sure if your being honest you will say the latter, which is exactly what Murray did. Please let's all stand back from the bile that is still being written and add a bit of objectivity to all of this ...... It's not a go at you Stevo as we've all been guilty of being dragged into other people's agendas over this issue

How sick did Graham Spiers look on the Scotland tonight programme? He was gutted that Rangers won the case and it was amusing to see him try and save face

@ 5 thats what murray did ?? i think youll find murray bailed out flogged the club for a pound to a crook knowing that liquidation would be the result explain how that is fighting to the end ??

@4 Mr RED did not work for Mr Murry then ?
Tam

22 Nov 2012 11:46:41
Can someone explain to me why the hell we are playing in division 3 considering we won the tax case. Surely it wasnt just the VAT and PYE that sent a club our size over the edge?!?!?

CC

Seems to me like we could have avoided all this crap

I'm afraid it was exactly that, that got you liquidated. From the day Craig Whyte took over the club paid no PAYE or NI and the HMRC didn't like that.

Craig Whyte would not have been anywhere near Rangers had the Big Tax case not existed or taken 3 years - FACT
So you arguement is flawed!
The HMRC was the main driver for Rangers being in their current state, as they affected the sale of the club from Murray Group.

Is there a myth that Rangers HAVE been liquidated, the liquidators have just gone in, these things take time.

#OP Let me try and explain...Oldco went into administration for a range of debts brought about by the financial mismangement of messers Murray and Whyte. Yes the size of the big tax bill isnt as large as feared; however that bill was only part of the bigger financial picture. I agree that there may well have been alternative buyer pre-Whyte however, as recognised by Murray this week, due process was required to allow justice to be seen to be done. The fact that the decision went for gers must be gut wrenching for the fans and without sounding condesending I absolutely sympathise but I also struggle to understand why you and others fail to see why the club went into liquidation before that process was complete.

There were multiple creditors, and Rangers shareholders, who were left high and dry by those charged with the responsibility of managing the club correctly.

The subsequent media and fans frenzy over the tax decision has only fuelled a deeper misunderstanding of the situation; as highlighted by your post. I'm not being any other than honest and hope my comments don't offend

I do believe rangers were not so co operative through the investigation, maybe if rangers were up frontfrom the start then they could have avoided this mess

Murray could have sold RANGERS and accepted any arising liability (now quite small) from the HRMC case....

he chose to walk away from that deal, and sell to Whyte for just £1. Why ?

He could have sold to blue knights, for £10 million, and paid the FTT with that... he chose not too.

HRMC job is to chase people for unpaid tax.

Rangers shareholders left high and dry have legal redress, why dont they exercise this ?

if they do people who did wrong can go to jail.

first in line are directors/owners of oldco.

Rangers, from 2004 denied HMRC access to information they requested.
It was only when Ibrox was raided in 2007 that the relevant information was released somewhat unwillingly.
Rangers , through their delay tactics have no one to blame but themselves. The petted lip routine by bears is cringeworthy !

Hmrc job is to do whatever the hell they want, because they can. That's why they didn't accept cva and spent millions chasing shadows and costing other creditor the chance to recoup any of their money owed, and that's why the spent £1 million chasing Harry redknapp because they thought he owed them 20grand. Makes you proud.

Blueice

@5 Yes let's all believe this nonsense it was Rangers own fault.
It was HMRC, they have powers to go in and get information, why did they take so long? Why did they refuse Murray's offer of £10m? Why did they pursue a case that was not a cert? and at the end of it all they will get less than a million in cash and having costs of £3m to get that.
Poor poor HMRC, awe that's a shame.
They have boxed themselves into a corner, they will have to appeal and cost more money without having a definite case.

@8 That raid was part of an enquiry into corruption in England and had nothing to do with the HMRC case. The raid was at Portsmouth, RFC and Newcastle and the enquiry had been ongoing since 2006 involving transfers, managers, agents and players in England. A Mr. Boomsoung I think was the RFC player involved who moved to Newcastle. Additional information they found may have been passed to the HMRC as a consequence.
But hey you batter on in with your misinformation/lies and trying to pin everything on RFC. Comedy Gold, son.

£55m of debt, including over £25m due to HMRC for non payment of PAYE, NIC and VAT resulted in Rangers going into administration and them liquidation. It had nothing to do with the Big Tax Case.

From #4.. I must say I am disappointed that there are no direct comments to my post despite 4 people disagreeing....

"It was HMRC, they have powers to go in and get information, why did they take so long?"

FTT states rangers man in charge of EBT (Mr Red) refused to meet with HRMC to discuss, HRMC had to send in the police to raid offices to gain information... this took 4 years.

No company is allowed to hide financial information from HRMC, shareholders and fans, why should rangers be allowed this ?

Why did rangers delay?

@10 all they will get less than a million ? Don't think it's over by a long shot.
Tam

I think everyone is forgetting Murray sold rangers for £1 and to clear £18m bank debt, so technically Murray sold it for £18,000,001. Rangers committed financial suicide for years.

Tam. The figure now due to them as I have read it ranges between 1 and 2m pounds. The amount they have allegedly spent chasing the BTC ranges between 3 and 5m pounds. This is taxpayers money they are playing with, not theirs. They are looking at an approximate deficit of 2m already. On top of that they are going to get next to nothing back in relation to the PAYE and NI payments due from Oldco after forcing Rangers into liquidation (so that is us, the taxpayer, approximately 17m down as things stand) and even if they were to appeal the BTC and win it a few years down the line then they would still only be entitled to a slightly larger percentage of a very small pot anyway as it would still be the Oldco liable and not Murray himself (otherwise the BTC would have had no direct impact on Rangers at all if it was just Murray they were after - plus the other creditors do not receive their share until HMRC end proceedings against the club and BDO cannot conclude the liquidation process either). If they had any common sense or were genuinely acting in the best interests of the taxpayer at all then it most definitely should be well and truly over following the verdict the other day.

They have never, in six attempts now, won a single one of these cases brought against a football club. Even if they do appeal and win then they will still lose more of our money in the process as the Oldco wouldn't be able to meet their court costs anyway and the appeal process could take a couple of years to reach a verdict. Hardly inexpensive. There is also now legal dubiety over whether or not they can chase the players for any amounts due even if they won. It will be an absolute joke if they appeal as they have no precedent of success, no likelihood of regaining taxpayers any money and, given the appeal will be based around reviewing the exact same evidence that went in Rangers favour before, at best a 50-50 percent chance of winning the appeal. What on earth would be the point in that? They would just be spinning the wheel and gambling with even more of our money in the hope of losing slightly less of it in the process if they win. Crazy.

Brian

16)... so technically Murray sold it for £18,000,001.

Not true, Whyte hands over £1 and accepts the debt of £18 million. The debt is a negative not a positive.

Whyte bought rangers for -£17,999 , he then filled this whole with ticketus money.

Whyte only put £1 into the deal.

Brian what price the truth,you just need to read Michael Mols article in the paper, his agent said it was better for the club to do it this way. As I ( see took your teaching's to heart ) lol, said on the green site in my opinion Mr Mols was covering his own backside.
Tam

@18: Murray only allowed white the club for £1 only if he cleared the £18m bank debt, which he did rightly or wrongly by mortgaging the season tickets. It happens all the time, the glaziers bought Man U with debt.

Tam. I am unsure as to what truth you are after. We all know what an EBT is. We all know the players received payments through an EBT. The difficulty, which is clear to see from the verdict reached, is proving it and Rangers, in the vast majority of the individual cases, were deemed to have acted within the remit of the law. It is a scheme for reducing/avoiding paying tax that has been used by many, many businesses and continues to be used in many different guises. Your own Neil Lennon got burnt by one such avoidance scheme, as did Jimmy Carr and a few others and there will still be plenty of celebrities and footballers in England in particular legally avoiding paying tax. I find these schemes abhorrent and morally wrong personally and wish my club had never entertained them, the problem is they are perfectly legal when administered properly. Tax avoidance schemes wouldn't even get the bad press they are receiving at the minute if we weren't in a full blown recession, as the rich tend to get to do as they please. And lets not kid ourselves either. If Quinn wasn't at Celtic at the time then Celtic would have continued Juninho's and probably started to pay other players in the same manner too. Why? Because it is a perfectly legitimate and legal process to use, morals aside, and reduces the amount clubs have to realistically pay out in wages whilst still paying the players what they want. That is exactly why Rangers used it and the players accepted it. It is a legal tax avoidance scheme and in the eyes of the law these payments the players received (particularly with reference to HMRC rather than the separate dual contracts issue which is another matter entirely) were loans, it is as simple as that. Yes, a few were administered incorrectly and could not then be deemed as 'legal' loans, but in the main Rangers (technically MIH) acted within the law in using them. As I said, I don't know what truth you think will be derived at by throwing more money down the drain in chasing an appeal. It all comes down to whether or not they were administered properly or not. If it were based on morals I would that anyone anywhere that has used this or a similar scheme were made to pay them back.

Brian

Brian the truth i am refering to is, I believe that none of the ebts were used correctly ( a loan you do not have to pay back or you don't have to pay it back until you are dead ?). I believe HMRC will appeal the decision because it was a majority decision and not a unanimous one. That is my opinion and until I am proven wrong will stick by it
Tam

22 Nov 2012 10:30:38
its alright alistair and martin bain and the old board moaning about how craig whyte bought the club for a pound and rode his luck on the tax so he could make a profit .nothing stopped them from buying the club but not a chance more interested in their cushy wee board jobs than taking a risk and i include sir cardigan of helensburgh in that. had they bought the club then the old rangers could be intact still.

I'm of the opinion Walter Smith only came back because he found out the result of the tax case, do we really need people like this?

22 Nov 2012 00:35:17
My thinking is that in this tribunal we have a strong dissenting opinion, supported by a lot of case law.
Firstly, the existence of a strong dissenting opinion would tend to favour an application for a further appeal.
Secondly, appeal to an upper tribunal to clarify the validity of the arguments would be useful, given the amount of legal time already invested.

Appeal still unlikely, but the opinion exists and rangers cannot remove this as a statement of fact.

A judge believes rangers management were hiding payments as loans.

Will SFA/SPL/UEFA/FIFA listen to that valid legal opinion?

Will rangers appeal that part of the decision, not in fact but in "law" - cause its damning.

Actually your very badly informed, or just plainly wrong. the 2 Judges agreed Rangers were innocent. It was an accountant that didn't agree. If your going to come on here and quote facts, please make sure you know what your talking about straw-clutcher!
Bluebells are blue

@2...not having a go here by the way but where did you get the information that the guy who didnt agree was just an accountant?

The only reason HMRC will appeal is because the decision as it stands favours EBTs. Therefore all employers using them and being chased can now cite it as precedent.
The whole thing has cost about £3m so far. How much will HMRC be now due, say a million and they will get a fraction of that from oldco liquidated monies as all creditors are in the same pot....How much more of tax payers money is to be 'chanced' on an appeal with no likelyhood of being paid.... and they could loose, again.

HMRC have already spent near £5 million on this case plus they were offered £10 million by DM to settle years ago and they refused, I don't think they can afford to lose again on this unless they are really determined to destroy oldco's reputation.
JMG

@3. He is not the only one who saw that info, i did as well. Dr Heidi Poon was the dissenting voice on the panel, an Accountant - not a QC. bigbaz

Hi. Her name was in the press, along with the accountancy firm she worked for. But I wont mention it here, there are too many libellous writs about to be drafted methinks lol

When is a QC a judge,

oh when there are three judges in an FTT and all three make judgements.... and are therefore define in the process as .... wait for it.... judges.

cheryl cole a judge in x-factor... same thing, not a judge in daily life, but a judge none the less in context.

@3

i believe the person who didnt agree was a woman

taken from the bbc

The dissenting opinion came from Dr Heidi Poon, who concluded that the money received by the employees through the trust constituted earnings for income tax purposes.

Dr Poon is an Accountant

Lochaber bear

@3: @2 is correct. Dr Heidi Poon is a financial expert, voted against. The votes for were from 2 tax law Q.C's with approx 60 years experience between them.

About the judge that didn't "agree" with the other judges, was it not more that he couldn't make up his mind whether they were loans or not?

TTG

@11 That he was a she.
Tam