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A short note on tax law for Rangers fans and bheasts


Virtuoso

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I write to explain a point of law that has occupied much of my twitter feed for the last couple of days. It may help to say that I am a Queen’s Counsel specialising in tax law. And I have no commercial or personal connection to Rangers (I use that name in a vernaculous rather than a legal sense) or its successor entities or (as far as I am aware) anyone connected with the club or those entities.

I have said that it is not accurate to describe Rangers’ use of EBTs as “illegal” or “unlawful”. And here is why.

You might think about the purpose of tax law as being to draw lines in the sand: fall on one side of the line and your liability will be (lower) x; fall on the other side and it will be (higher) y. Rangers entered into certain transactions which they hoped and (I understand) expected would attract liability x but which the Supreme Court decided attracted liability y. It is not “illegal” or “unlawful” to attract a higher liability than you want. And nor is it illegal or unlawful to transact to try and attract liability x but to fail and, nevertheless, to attract liability y.

We self-assess our liability to tax. Putting it another way, HMRC ask us questions in a self-assessment form, we answer them, and those answers have as their consequence that we owe a particular sum in tax. We also promise HMRC that we believe the answers are right.

If we give HMRC answers that lead to the conclusion that we owe x in tax and a court later says that our answers were wrong and we owe y in tax that does not establish, on its own, that we have behaved unlawfully or illegally. It is not unlawful or illegal to make an honest mistake.

If, in completing the self-assessment form, we gave answers that we did not believe to be right, we would have behaved unlawfully or illegally. But I am not aware of any evidence that Rangers gave answers in its self-assessment form that it did not believe to be right. And nor, so far as I am aware, is this an allegation that HMRC has advanced.

What about a situation where Rangers gave misleading answers to HMRC outside the self-assessment form? Certainly it would be very poor behaviour. And I can imagine circumstances in which this might be unlawful. But, on its own, this fact – if fact it is – does not enable the conclusion to be drawn that Rangers has broken any law.

 

https://waitingfortax.com/2017/07/27/a-short-note-on-tax-law-for-rangers-and-celtic-fans/

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Glad this chap has taken the time to state the FACTS..But such things matter not a jot to the obsessed haters..They will continue to howl at the moon and likewise bawbags like tom english and his chums will still repeat lies until the Rangers Board take them to task..

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How many times does it need to be said. 

What the club and MIH did wasn't cheating as it wasn't illegal. Cheating is knowingly breaking of rules. 

Say HMRC came out with a rule that said clubs should never have been owned by Non UK tax payers. Does that mean that those who were, are retrospectively owned illegally? 

There is no conspiracy. 

The most recent judgement went against MIH and for HMRC who retrospectively disagreed with MIH interpretation of EBT use. 

The difference with us and why I feel there is so much fucking noise is that we didn't settle, we challenged HMRC. Murray had to challenge as MIH couldnt afford to settle. 

Its naive to suggest we didn't deserve to win those leagues but I do wonder if going back we had just settled with HMRC (taking into account original post in that even settling would not have been a statement  of criminal wrongdoing)  would we be where now?

 

 

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I read all that guys stuff a while back re us. He is very good and frankly we need a sane voice to counter the absolute hysteria currently circulating in Scotland. Putting Tom English in his place at the same time is an added bonus.

 

Its interesting that this guy is a QC, LNS was  QC, 3 other QC's backed up LNS findings,  Gerry Moynihan is a QC  - and according to the taigs THEY ARE ALL WRONG

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1 hour ago, cushynumber said:

I read all that guys stuff a while back re us. He is very good and frankly we need a sane voice to counter the absolute hysteria currently circulating in Scotland. Putting Tom English in his place at the same time is an added bonus.

 

Its interesting that this guy is a QC, LNS was  QC, 3 other QC's backed up LNS findings,  Gerry Moynihan is a QC  - and according to the taigs THEY ARE ALL WRONG

QC = Queens Counsel, they'll never take the word of any man of The Queen.

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2 hours ago, cushynumber said:

I read all that guys stuff a while back re us. He is very good and frankly we need a sane voice to counter the absolute hysteria currently circulating in Scotland. Putting Tom English in his place at the same time is an added bonus.

 

Its interesting that this guy is a QC, LNS was  QC, 3 other QC's backed up LNS findings,  Gerry Moynihan is a QC  - and according to the taigs THEY ARE ALL WRONG

Aye but masons:anger:

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3 hours ago, Virtuoso said:

I wish MIH, who administered the fund (NOT Rangers) or maybe Club1872 would point this out and send it to all of our media haters with the comment that legal action will be considered if this continues. I believe DM has to take the lead as his company administered it so Rangers will stay silent with "nothing to do with us".

Not holding my breath on DM tho.

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Rangers won't reply, for all we know it is part of the 5 way deal to take all the shit being thrown at us without a word in clarification. As far as MIH goes they don't really givea crap as long as DM has his Steel business.

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