Celtic Employees & Tax Avoidance

[North Rd 2,860]

Sorry if this has been posted before

Rangers use of EBTs from 2001 to 2010 not only placed the club in great danger, but has allowed enemies of the club to moralise to all who will listen over tax avoidance

Despite the EBT scheme being a perfectly legal one used widely in England, the interpretations of it in Scotland by tax sponging student bloggers, and lazy biased journalists have been uniformly inaccurate.

Lets be absolutely clear, the use of EBTs was legal, and could have been used by any other club in Scotland, and was in fact used by Celtic for one season.

When former Bank Of England Chief Brian Quinn took over the reins as Chairman, he stopped the Celtic using the facility directly.

That, however, does not ensure that both Celtic as a club and an employer can be completely excluded from questions on how payments are made to players and staff.

Bear in mind that the amnesty period for the SPLs request for full information on player remuneration, since the SPL began has passed.

The questions over the remuneration for some players who have played for Celtic have largely not been asked, and those that have asked have met a wall of silence

Among them is Robbie Keane. The deal for Celtic to take him on loan was widely reported as being fully funded not by Celtic, but by majority shareholder Dermot Desmond

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Tottenham-striker-Robbie-Keane-completes-sensational-105k-a-week-deadline-day-Celtic-switch-article308999.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/01/robbie-keane-celtic-loan-tottenham

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/celtic-pull-off-shock-as-dermot-desmond-funds-deal-to-take-robbie-keane-on-loan-from-spurs-1-788793

http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/spl/2855014/This-is-galling.html?print=yes

It is also widely speculated that Juninho received an EBT while at the club. Was it declared to the SFA and SPL?

Other high earning stars such as Thomas Graveson Craig Bellamy and Roy Keane earned sums far higher than most of their team mates.

Did they have dual contracts? Why are the media not asking these questions?

Of course, these questions relate directly to the day to day business and management of Celtic the club, but what of employees of Celtic?

While Rangers have been in the depths of despair, the lack of sympathy from Celtic has been unsurprising, with some comment from Neil Lennon being uncalled for, but the depth of hatred and vindictiveness from their support has been on a scale even streetwise bears are taken aback by.

With blogs set up purely to highlight Rangers finances, and other Celtic blogs spending most of their time on the subject of Rangers, the common theme is that tax avoidance is wrong, and that perpetrators should be punished in the strongest terms.

Of course, as a tax payer myself I concur, except that I believe that all should be treated equally.

Equally, it should be noted that self-employed website owners, fanzine business owners, T shirt salesmen, and non UK Citizens are probably not the best people to lecture on tax avoidance, unless its from their experience of how to get away with it, or how they were made bankrupt.

So, while the agenda to punish Rangers has been apparently about morals, and about doing the right thing, those same hypocrites have completely ignored the direct questions to Celtic as a football club, and ignored the emerging news of Celtic Players and Directors participating in tax avoidance schemes.

What, you ask? Celtic players and staff avoiding tax?

Well its true.

Last week the Daily Mail reported on one such tax scheme, with one of the few names mentioned being the Celtic Manager Neil Lennon, who invested in the scheme while a player at Celtic

Innovator One designed the plans so that if investors put in £20,000, they could get back £40,000 in tax relief immediately as a result of the partnerships they joined paying large sums for technology using loans from the bank.

But the taxman decided that since the loan money went round in a circle, being put on deposit with the bank that had originally made the loan, investors were eligible only for relief on the sums they had actually contributed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2153726/High-Court-rejects-100m-claim-tax-schemes-used-sportsmen.html#ixzz1wqMvnV3z

Following recent moves by HMRC to tighten up loopholes on Tax avoidance schemes the Independent reported that one such scheme called Eclipse 35 was now illegal.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/exposed-the-hundreds-of-city-millionaires-in-film-tax-loophole-7676028.html

There are numerous other similar investment vehicles that do the same thing, with such schemes including Inside Track 3 LLP, and Ingenious Film Partners 2 LLP

A number of Celtic players and employees were named on another Daily Mail article on tax avoidance in relation to these schemes

Director Searches on Lennon, Mjallby, Bellamy, Petta, Hartson and Sylla are interesting

Other members of Inside Track 3 include Celtic Chief Executive Peter Lawwell and Celtic Financial Director Eric Riley

http://www.cdrex.com/peter-thomas-lawwell/598617.html

http://company-director-check.co.uk/director/900009258

The full board for this scheme is below.

http://www.cdrex.com/inside-track-3-llp/board-2388241.html

So, at the time of joining, none of the people involved appear to have done anything illegal.

Now, though, after the Eclipse 35 ruling, they will have to withdraw from these schemes.

Now, given that the moral argument that the Celtic support has been made redundant, will the moral judges of Scottish Football apply some balance and pursue Celtic for answers on EBTs, and possible dual contracts?

Will they then condemn the practices of senior Celtic staff and players for participating in tax avoidance schemes?

If not, are they just hypocrites?

What of the SFA and SPL boards, standing in judgement on Rangers, while board members Lawwell and Riley themselves utilise tax avoidance schemes

Will said Directors resign from the respective boards in shame?

Bill

http://williampoole.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/celtic-employees-tax-avoidance/

[Getstiffed 8,863]

Forwarding this to any and all contact E-mail addresses for Scottish newspapers?

[Jocky Broon 207]

Forwarding this to any and all contact E-mail addresses for Scottish newspapers?

The post is in direct reference to the reports in todays Daily Record about the Lurgan Bigot being involved in an ILLEGAL Tax avoidance scheme.I just read he has to hand back all his runners up medals and has been stripped of 3 layers of plaque on his teeth.All in the name of sporting integrity of course.

[Getstiffed 8,863]

The post is in direct reference to the reports in todays Daily Record about the Lurgan Bigot being involved in an ILLEGAL Tax avoidance scheme.I just read he has to hand back all his runners up medals and has been stripped of 3 layers of plaque on his teeth.All in the name of sporting integrity of course.

I meant the bottom portion. People are talking about fighting back, lets do it.

[ready1873 3,872]

There's no way that Roy Keane, Robbie Keane, Graveson, Juninho and Bellamy were all being paid legitimately.

[Guardian 4,281]

Then we must employ the same tactics they have used so successfully.

Keep hammering and digging away at this until the authorities have no other choice but to do something about it.

Keep mentioning it in the media, even in comments on their articles. Use phone-ins.

Get former players to comment on it.

Use any and every means to keep the kettle boiling. Eventually the story will reach a critical mass where the size of the story outweighs loyalty to lieswell.

Leggo and the dingbats should be investigating this rather than our own.

It'll start off small, but eventually it'll snowball and engulf them.

They are masters at this drip-drip tactic, but I'm sure we'll quickly get up to speed.

We should be turning over every rock to make sure they are punished for every transgression.

I'm quite sure every club has some dodgy dealings, but it's only ours which ever get probed. It's time we changed that.

Get our legal and accountancy bods mobilised.

[Getstiffed 8,863]

Then we must employ the same tactics they have used so successfully.

Keep hammering and digging away at this until the authorities have no other choice but to do something about it.

Keep mentioning it in the media, even in comments on their articles. Use phone-ins.

Get former players to comment on it.

Use any and every means to keep the kettle boiling. Eventually the story will reach a critical mass where the size of the story outweighs loyalty to lieswell.

Leggo and the dingbats should be investigating this rather than our own.

It'll start off small, but eventually it'll snowball and engulf them.

They are masters at this drip-drip tactic, but I'm sure we'll quickly get up to speed.

We should be turning over every rock to make sure they are punished for every transgression.

I'm quite sure every club has some dodgy dealings, but it's only ours which ever get probed. It's time we changed that.

Get our legal and accountancy bods mobilised.

Did we defeat the Nazis by murdering millions and enslaving the population of our country? No.

We can do it, the Rangers way. Not their way.

[Blue Skies 31]

Loving the article in today's Record about tax avoidance - that's karma

[scarkev 3,540]

Interesting read.. Hope more of it is picked up by the media. Cheers.

[FUDGIE52 9]

Did we defeat the Nazis by murdering millions and enslaving the population of our country? No.

We can do it, the Rangers way. Not their way.

Which is ??

BTW I totally agree guardian we need to fight back they hounded our club for years its time we did the same and bring the feckers down.

[Getstiffed 8,863]

We should hand over every piece of info with regards to tax issues, that we have seen, both here and on other forums/blogs to every journo north and south of the border, that has never been printed in the newspaper or reported on the nightly news.

We need our corner fought with clarity and conviction.

[Getstiffed 8,863]

Which is ??

BTW I totally agree guardian we need to fight back they hounded our club for years its time we did the same and bring the feckers down.

Are you seriously asking me what the Rangers way is? I hope you are at the wind up.

[barkie 201]

The sheeps chairman was also using them.

[glesgabear81 24]

Looks like you have put a lot of work into it, if I'm honest then I'd say on a personal level I would use any and all means available to pay as little tax as possible.

We will soon find out if celtic and other clubs declared all contractual payments to their players but I can't see how clubs can be held responsible for employees personal tax arrangements, as long as the club paid the tax at their end then they are untouchable.

Typical hypocrisy from them though, I'd wager there are also tabloid hacks that wouldn't want prying eyes looking over their tax affairs.

[knowledge 21]

Will this be pursued with the necessary vim and vigour by the media I wonder?

[BigRickrfc 6]

Anyone think the daily rhecord posting the story today of all days was strange timing what with our licence needing pushed through

[Govan Front 78 43]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but according to the DR, the lhurghan bhigot's creative tax avoidance has already been deemed illegal? Surely this is putting him at somewhat less of a moral advantage when discussing our affairs, as the lhurghan bhigot tends to do - if the details are correct he's already lost most of the money he put in, some £120k & if the "investors" are hit with a £20 million bill for their troubles, stands to lose a further £36k... and Hartson's in for the same treatment apparently... smashing, just smashing.

[BigRickrfc 6]

Pity though they didnt add the words immoral, cheat, crimes etc etc and called him unlucky with money

:-|

[SomeGaveAll 32]

bump after todays ruling

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/money/tax/article3393209.ece

The tax man is a coming mr liewell and riley

[AlBear. 8,499]

bump after todays rulinghttp://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/money/tax/article3393209.eceThe tax man is a coming mr liewell and riley

£117 million...now that sounds familiar.

[bluenose1975 1,287]

Bump

[deco19761 1,006]

I know for a fact that Keane was staying in the top suite of married coating 20, 000 per month which was also being paid by Desmond. This was on top of his substantial wages in circa 75000. Now celtic could not afford that via their wage structure so how is that not deemed as cheating. That a wage structure they had in place was blown out of the water by this and Roy Keane and Brazil in junihno.

That's right they never played the the right wing, loyalist, unionist club that plays in tired white and blue and swears their allegiance to the queen of our country.

Has anyone actually sent a recorded delivery letter to journalists ie wacko jacko et all?? That way we would know he received it yet failed to act on this information , which I believe as part of the NUJ he has to report on because it is a public interest story regarding taxation which affects the public purse???