The Times has dug out a ‘mystery financier’ to add to the accountancy sources to follow up their ‘HMRC tax error’ story on Thursday.
Rather than come up with further evidence to advance their front page story the Scottish edition of the newspaper, print circulation 15,000, have decided to go in heavy with the ‘we wur pyoor cheet’d’ thory favoured by the loonballs of social media.
Today’s Times story states ‘HMRC claimed was £74 million, but it was later revised to £68.3 million’ and continues down to the figure of £20m without any explanation.
All the while there is no acknowledgement that failing to settle The Wee Tax Case of £2.8m and with-holding £9m in Income Tax and National Insurance led the club into administration in February 2012. Before a penny had been calculated on The Big Tax Case.
Any ‘mystery financier’ that took a look at the club in the spring of 2012 would have had to settle the £11.8m owed to HMRC plus millions owed to other creditors while using their tax experts to make a judgement on The Big Tax Case.
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Had those two tax bills been settled by the ‘mystery financier’ HMRC would have been prepared to discuss a deal on the Big Tax Case but under Dave Murray and Craig Whyte there was never an admission of guilt, the use of EBT’s was defended despite the looking Supreme Court ruling that it was a form of disguised remuneration.
Today The Times reports:
The financier indicated that they were aware of other groups that had looked at Rangers in 2010 and 2011 and said: “It is a fantastic club but the tax situation hanging over it was a huge concern. That was one of the reasons the bid I was involved in did not go forward.”
The Times revealed that up to £50 million could be knocked off the liability owed in relation to the use of employee benefit trusts.
The initial sum HMRC claimed was £74 million, but it was later revised to £68.3 million. About £26 million in charges has already been wiped and appeals over other elements are taking place. Sources from within the accountancy industry expect that the final bill could be closer to £20 million.
Asked whether a fixed £20 million tax bill would have put investors off, the financier said: “If you have got certainty of something then you can work with it. It would have made life a lot easier for us to get a deal done.”
The ‘mystery financier’ would be better off speaking to the tax expert consulted by The Sun, anyone taking on the old Rangers club would be waving good-bye to at least £50m to start afresh with a club that hadn’t recorded a profit in a decade of debt ran up by Murray.