HMRC break silence to rubbish accusations from Whyte

HMRC have rubbished claims from discredited Rangers owner Craig Whyte that his club are being singled out for special treatment.

Whyte’s latest outburst came yesterday afternoon when he made a number of accusations while admitting that he had used a loan from Ticketus to buy the club and pay off the £18m debt to Lloyds TSB.

That information was freely available on various message-boards and blogs as early as last June but was denied by Whyte until yesterday.

Despite having his reputation trashed since the turn of the year Whyte accused HMRC of trying to make an example out of Rangers.

Today a spokesman for HMRC said: “We can’t discuss specific cases for legal reasons, but tax that has been deducted at source from the wages of players and support staff, such as ground keepers and physios, must be paid over to HMRC.

“Any business that fails to meet that basic legal requirement puts the survival of the business at risk.”

The statement added: “Any business that regards paying tax as an optional extra after other expenses are met, or that uses tax collected from employees or customers as working capital, is potentially heading for trouble.

“There is little HMRC can do for a business – be it a football club or not – whose viability is dependent either on not paying the UK taxes to which they are liable, or on special treatment not available to other customers with similar tax affairs.”