[St Charles Owl]

My mistake: it's The Murray Group that has The right of appeal and not BDO.

From what I have read it is the liquidators who may have the right to appeal against this decision as they are technically in charge of what is left of the Murray Group.

Either way Larry's question as to who is actually liable for the tax money is an interesting one.  Technically as these employees were using PAYE for their tax, then it is the company's responsibility to deduct and pay the tax on the employees behalf based on the individuals tax code.  If they were self employed, then it would be the individuals responsibility to declare these payments on their tax return.  I am no tax expert at all but I think the onus is on the liquidators to pay the tax as they hold the cash they were able to salvage from the  companies involved who should have paid it in the first instance but I also wonder if there is a mechanism for BDO to go after the individuals to claim back the tax portion of their pay that they now illegally received!!!!

Either way its a mess and hindsight has proved what a stupid and high risk strategy this was for Rangers (and 5,000 other companies!!) to use as a way of avoiding taxes.  As it said on one article I read today, this whole scheme was so close to the wire even if it was legal that it would raise some serious eyebrows from the tax man and the general public alike!!

As for the sporting advantage, I am not sure how you could prove or disprove this.  Unless Barry Ferguson or any of the other 40% of Rangers players on this scheme were to categorically state that they would not have joined Rangers unless this tax benefit was there, then its pure speculation to suggest they gained a sporting advantage.  Ultimately Ranger could afford to pay them enough to allow their take home income to be at the same level but chose to offer this tax scheme which saved the club some money instead.  The totals over a 10 year period only amounted to 47m and this included a number of non-playing staff including Murray himself, so I would guess that the "sporting" aspect of this only amounted to 2-3m per season anyway and that is hardly likely to be enough to provide a sporting advantage to the degree that some are claiming.

[Paigntonhibby]

Of course 2-3 million a season is enough tae gain a sporting advantage, especially in Scotland. If Rangers disnae think it was illegal they must at least have thought the scheme dodgy, otherwise why hide it

[Fredstersafool]

Of course it gained a sporting advantage with those payments Rangers couldn't afford those players,even you thick feckers can see that

[St Charles Owl]

Of course 2-3 million a season is enough tae gain a sporting advantage, especially in Scotland. If Rangers disnae think it was illegal they must at least have thought the scheme dodgy, otherwise why hide it

But I think thats the point, it wasn't illegal or at the least wasn't believed to be illegal which is why 5,000 companies were using this method of payment to employees.  HMRC deemed it illegal and offered a period of time when companies could go back and correct it, which a lot did, of course by then Rangers were in no state to pay back anything!!  The advice they got was very bad, and I have no doubt that Murray new it was as close to illegal as he could go!!

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Of course it gained a sporting advantage with those payments Rangers couldn't afford those players,even you thick feckers can see that

Don't consider myself a "thick fecker" but do have a different opinion to yours!!!  The actual savings for Rangers were 40% or so (the tax they should have paid) of the money each season, so approx 800k-1.2m per season!!  Even Rangers could afford that, or more accurately could try to sustain that much more debt!!  Of course in reality, there was a lot that Rangers could not afford at that time, hence their demise and having to start at the bottom of the SFL upon their return.

Besides Fred, in that same era lets not forget the overspending that was seen at Hearts (and other Scottish clubs) where players wages were over 120% of the clubs revenue for a number of seasons.  That too came back to smack the club in the butt and while you were able to come out of admin it did result in relegation after a points deduction.  Football in Scotland has on the  whole got itself back on track with finances, thanks to some generous banks, lets hope this continues and we see no other clubs go through what Rangers or Hearts have had to!!

[El Car]

I've only skimmed the full report but some of the more surprising ramifications from what I picked out are that 1) despite English and Scottish law being significantly different in many ways, being a practitioner of one apparently makes you competent to make judgements on the other; 2) any money paid into a trust fund of any sort should be subject to tax at source; 3) pre tax deductions from your salary for benefits etc should be taxed anyway because at some point someone somewhere might be a beneficiary in kind or monetarily; 4) loans should now be taxed as income, which would mean HMRC would be able to tax it on issuance and also tax the same again on repayment, even if there was no interest involved; 5) footballers' contracts are not binding as they can apparently walk away from them at any time. Big one for FIFA to take not of.

[Fredstersafool]

Iv'e never denied the overspend at hearts won us cups unlike those on here it definitely helped us win things just like it did Rangers, like I said they could never have got those players without those payments

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Oh and by the way they couldn't afford the wages that's why they had so big a debt regardless of the big tax case

[supercooper]

The debt was 27 million Fred How much was Hearts?

[Trusevich]

Yet nobody shouted for Hearts to hand back trophies. Rank hypocrisy yet again. The anti-Rangers agenda laid bare.

[hibeejim21]

"From what I have read it is the liquidators who may have the right to appeal against this decision as they are technically in charge of what is left of the Murray Group."



Yesterdays decision in the court of session was the only time as far as i know that a legally binding decision has been handed down on this matter and as far as i can see murrays companies did not contest only BDO on behalf of the creditors.

The ruling says that the responsibility for deducting tax fell on the employer, but I guess it's down to HMRC how they wish to pursue it.

[0762]

Yet nobody shouted for Hearts to hand back trophies. Rank hypocrisy yet again. The anti-Rangers agenda laid bare.

Wrong!!! Lotsa fans did indeed opine that Hearts should be forced to hand back trophies in a similar fashion and high-ranking officials at the SFA should've forced this issue through to it's rightful conclusion and send out a strong message to any football club that chances it and effectively gets away with corrupt practise while other decent football clubs were trying to practice properly.