Pay As You earn, or PAYE, is the mechanism through which most people pay tax on their income in the UK. It is deducted from source by employers, who forward collected money to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
Not everyone is paid this way. In the decade prior to their liquidation, Rangers paid 53 players over £33m through Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs). They paid owner, Sir David Murray, and manager, Alex McLeish through trusts, and also paid then-Blackburn Rovers manager, Graeme Souness, and then-Everton manager, Walter Smith, through EBTs.
Former players still involved in the game, or in the media, received pay through EBTs, including Billy Dodds, Steven Thompson, Neil McCann, Kris Boyd, Alex Rae and Barry Ferguson, the latter pocketing a clear £2.5m.
HMRC have instructed recipients to contact them in order to make plans to pay tax on this income. The money received is regarded by HMRC as a net figure, tax and National Insurance contributions will be added onto this, almost certainly always at the top rate. Then penalties and interest will be added. Players like Peter Lovenkrands will have to find money to top up the £902k he received.
Players received a letter from Rangers agreeing to underwrite any tax liability that resulted in them agreeing to take a portion of their remuneration in this way. Unfortunately, that agreement perished when Rangers went into liquidation.
No one likes paying taxes, but it funds healthcare, social services, housing, roads, police and even the monarchy and armed forces. What happened was a disgrace.
The club paid the ultimate price, with supporters going through incessant humiliations. The directors of Rangers at the time, including David Murray, most recent past SFA president and another EBT recipient, Campbell Ogilvie, and Dave King, men who were paid to look after the interests of the club, its staff, supporters and creditors, were never asked to account for bringing the game into disrepute by the SFA.
The chief puppeteer should be sine died from our game.
287 Comments- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- »
The Drain their sw
Beyonce
Should be banned sine die, but won’t be.
Drain their swamp
PETEC on 28TH AUGUST 2018 6:30 AM
Its always Hate against Christianity. So many Masonic Protestant denominations that quite frankly are despicable.
* “For what profits a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul”.
The Orange Order is the furthest thing ever from Being a Christian
*they don’t have souls
That awkward moment, when you hear Collum is MIB on Sunday, and you think ‘ he’s no the worst….’
Madhun
Thomshun
Dallas
Beaton
Etc etc.
It will be interesting to see whether HMRC try to recover money from Bankrupt Barry Ferguson via the Courts. He shifted ownership of assets as soon as he saw what was coming down the pike, most notably the ownership of his house, transferred into his wife’s sole name. HMRC could apply to have that transaction ‘reduced’ and you would think, given the amount of money involved, it would be worth their candle to do so.
Glad I am not holding my breath waiting for Celtic to demand conpensation for the lost titles.
In bed with the cheats . Sssshhhh.
I like paying taxes.
An excellent article, Paul.
JJ
@Chavez
I have seen the huns play, and they were very good I thought. They defeated Maribor easily, and Maribor were a champions league side.
Their third goal on Sunday showed they can be very effective going forward – left two men up while defending a corner, and some quick incisive passing and movement saw them cut right through Motherwell.
I suspect we could have real problems this weekend.
LUXCELT
Similar markets? – too funny
I think not, Celtic could sign all of Sevco’s bosmans and cheapos’ with our sell on fees.
They haven’t signed one star player, not one, they were all available free, cheap or on loan.
Celtic fans are entitled to be arrogant we’ve been told of McCoist effectively doing business, Warburton effectively doing business, Murty effectively doing business, Caixinha effectively doing business, Murty ( again ) effectively doing business.
All still Dave King and Level5 till they cross the white line at Celtic Park.
p.s. We should review ‘the Celtic transfer window’ and not compare apples with pears on Saturday morning, especially given the manager has confirmed that players are incoming before Friday.
Paul67
Moonbeams took bad advice don’t cha know?
Luxcelt
The Huns, IMO, are better than many on here claim but , perhaps, not quite as good as you see them.
Your post, nevertheless, makes a refreshing difference from those claiming that Sevco are dreadful and we will morder them.
I think we will win and could even do so comfortably but dropped points would not amaze me. We have, apart from the first half hour against Livingstone, lacked something so far this season.
JJ
Smith and Souness deserve special investigation as payments were while at other clubs.
The state broadcaster with taxpayers funds has a cabal of ex RFC players probably paid thru companies to minimise tax.
As for Murray he is surfacing again in Edinburgh with help on various property initiatives.
Overall the SFA knew what went on and covered it up. The employment of McLeish shows their ambivalence to good corporate governance.
Leaving the Eternal City —- even in Italy nothing can compare to the corruption and collusion between SFA, Rangers and BBC Scotland. Never would I thought of praising Her Majesty’s crew who deal Tax.
Interesting to hear Lamont saying that the players were told that the EBTs were “loans that would never have to be repaid”.
Well, that looks suspiciously like a payment.
Yet their defence of not declaring them to the authorities was that they thought they didn’t have to because they WEREN’T payments!
Hmmmm……..
Recently, we had one poster referring to other posters as ‘snowflakes’. Now we have ‘drain the swamp’.
How about on Sunday, we all wear hats that say Make Celtic Great Again? And when the referee is announced, we all start chanting ‘lock him up’?
Even money that, at the next AGM. PL promises to build a wall around Celtic Park to keep them out (except for the 800… which will soon return to 7500) to keep us safe …
The Daily Squirrel. Shhh, don’t mention the transfer window………………………..
FIELDOFDRAMS on 28TH AUGUST 2018 12:18
A transaction at undervalue is where you give away your valuable assets (such as a car or property) or sell them for less than it is worth. If you do this within 5 years of going bankrupt the transaction can be overturned by the Official Receiver.
I think Barry Ferguson transferred his assets years ago on advice and as such HMRC will get nothing from him.
Paul67
How dare you write about something other than ‘the transfer window’?
LuxCelt on 28th August 2018 11:59 am
We keep hearing that it is “difficult” to get signings done.
Rangers have managed to complete 13 times this window.
Yes – they are in a slightly different market. But they are still recruiting from 2nd tier European leagues – Croatia, France D2 etc and also from EPL loans and EPL signings where appropriate (Goldson). In effect, similar markets to those that we are (allegedly) looking in.
_____________
It’s true that they have completed a lot of deals but time will tell if those deals add value to the club. They haven’t won a major trophy and their net transfer spend will be overwhelmingly negative.
_____________
“There is a lot of sneering at the huns on here, but they are going about their business very effectively and their European performances have reflected that.
¬_____________
How can you say they have done their business effectively? It’s still way too early to give a definitive verdict on any of their team. Signing 15 Mo Bangura’s, Teemu Pukki’s and Adam Virgo’s wouldn’t make it an effective window for us.
Who knows what level of quality they were playing in Europe? What we do know is that the bar is really low for Sevco. They almost finished 4th last season so second place and a meagre title challenge will be success.
_____________
“The arrogance on here is misplaced – they have their house in order on the park. We do not.”
_____________
Says who? Titles aren’t won in August and last I checked we are above them in the table. Our “arrogance” is not based on 13 new signings achieving 5 points in 3 games. It’s based off back to back trebles.
GARY67 on 28TH AUGUST 2018 12:36 PM
The Daily Squirrel. Shhh, don’t mention the transfer window………………………..
————-
Did cross my mind. Why call for a pointless sine die unless you know he is back channeling money into a Club or is planning to resurface. Bottom line is Celtic have done and said next to feck all about the cheating from a position of strength and influence. Absolutely disgraceful.
Now, as you say, 3 days and counting.
In football we fetishize everything new. That’s how a team of double treble winners and double CL qualifiers apparently become incapable of doing either of those things after a few weeks of transfer coverage.
If Celtic come out this window with a new CM to cover the loss of Armstrong I’d be just as confident of another treble.
Serial winners are completely underrated compared to shiny new signings that nobody had heard of a couple months ago.
Will Flood
Following his departure from Dundee United, Flood signed a one-year contract with fellow Scottish Championship club Dunfermline Athletic on 18 June 2018. Flood left Dunfermline just over a week after signing with the club, as he had received an offer from Indonesian club Bali United. He was officially announced as a Bali player on 6 July 2018 However, three days later, it was reported that eligibility rules on foreign players had meant that the deal could not be completed.
SometimesDealsAreJustTooHardToGetOverTheLine CSC
mit
are you watching snowflake?
mit
on fx
The arrogance of the SFA appointing tax cheat McLeish, tells you we have no balls for the fight.
So it seems that the players were indemnified by the – ahem – old “company that owned the club”.
So, the trophies belong to the CLUB.
But the players who won the trophies were paid by some external “company”.
So, we have the rather strange situation of players playing for a club, but NOT being employed by the club.
Wonder how this all fits in with third party ownership rules…..
Oh, and the “club” which won several SPL titles seemingly didn’t actually hold a share in this same SPL. That was held by the “company”, otherwise the club would have remained in the SPL.
So, players not employed by a club won titles for that club in a competition in which the club didn’t participate in!
The transfer window ended before our first CL qualifier….that is what we rely on. The season will be a failure, certainly financially, but also on the pitch unless we have found a scouting team and cheque book before Friday.. oh and don’t sell MD and ON
Timaloy
A couple of good posts, there.
Luxcelt
” Rangers have managed to complete 13 times this window.”
Would you like Celtic to have bought any of those signed by Sevco?
jj
Be great if even one of them sued the new club?
TH
I am assuming that was a typo, as I’m sure you mean FoX (all the rest are fake news), as opposed to FX.
mit
fx it is. channel 55 on rogers.
HOT SMOKED
There is one that I’d take in a minute, Tavernier.
The rest who knows I don’t see them play (warts and all) often enough.
BIG-CUP-WINNERS
There is one that I’d take in a minute, Tavernier.
————————————————————
You want us to concede even MORE stupid goals????
gordy bhoy
very sad news.
@ HOT SMOKED on 28TH AUGUST 2018 12:52 PM
Well if you compare the sources of the clubs’ two sets of signings, they are not as far apart as they seem.
Edouard is a signing only Celtic could make. However, looking at the others, the lines are quite easily blurred:
We have signed a youth player on loan from Man City, Sevco have signed a player from Roma (much of a muchness);
Sevco have signed Goldson from the PL and two Croat defenders (both with caps for Croatia); we signed Jack Hendry of Dundee and Compper- both Goldson and the Croat left back cost more than Hendry and Compper.
Sevco signed Arfield from a PL club, we signed Morgan from Scottish division 1;
Sevco signed McGregor as back-up (now first team player), we signed Bain from Dundee;
Sevco signed Kent and Ejaria on loan from PL club Liverpool, we signed Musonda on loan from PL club Chelsea.
Obviously we have a better squad of players and Sevco have far more work to do than us, but if Sevco signed any of Bain, Morgan or Arzani (or even McKenna of Aberdeen), we would not bat an eye.
Hi Paul67,
Very good article Paul. This is another symptom of what’s wrong in Scottish Football. For them this is just an occasional embarrassment.
While of course you must see the players as culpable for their own affairs, yet the people who ran Rangers and the Authorities that should have regulated Rangers, failed in their duty.
“The money received is regarded by HMRC as a net figure, tax and National Insurance contributions will be added onto this, almost certainly always at the top rate. Then penalties and interest will be added. Players like Peter Lovenkrands will have to find money to top up the £902k he received”
Yes, some think wealthy footballers, they can afford it, I’m not sure everyone realises the significance of this.
The revenue doesn’t look on PL’s money as paid tax free and say you should have paid 40% Tax on this ergo – £360K pls.
No, the £902K is looked on as after tax income so the 60% if you will. When you add NI etc you can be looking at a 50/50 split or near enough.
In reality that means they have to pay back as much as they got from the EBT – Now when you add to that the interest and penalties and as you say PL has to find over a Million possibly well over a million, far more than he was paid out – unless he can come to some arrangement with HMRC.
Now as far as SDM’s sine die ban… I believe he got a patsy to take the blame for him, I also seem to remember this fall guy got a sine die ban… The SFA JPDT exonerated the SDM executives… We wouldn’t want to go raking over the coals now would we!?
Hail Hail