Laburnum

Respect. Dicko. Kalasoma and Bjornebye

It's a difficult time and I believe it's not going to get any better short term. Who knows if Rodgers can turn it around? Only time will tell. Meantime it's over to you guys to show your love, passion and support for the club and help them through what is going to be a difficult time. YNWA.

Did you know that 15 English Premier League clubs were being chased by HMRC over the non-payment of tax on image rights contracts? Image rights allowed a club to pay a portion of a player’s wages in exchange for using their image to promote the club and their sponsors. Payments were made to a separate company, often based offshore, and taxed at a lower rate or not at all. HMRC insisted the system was being abused by clubs, particularly at the lower end of the league, allotting an unrealistic proportion of their payroll to image rights. Interestingly, instead of launching investigations into each of the clubs with a law lord at the helm, the FA Premier League decided to broker a deal with HMRC. Indeed, they successfully came to an agreement with the taxman and it turned out Chelsea paid the most money in the shape of £6.4million. The strange thing is that the man running the SPL, Neil Doncaster, is familiar with the workings of the FA and the Football League because he worked for both of them. As Chief Executive of Norwich City, he was appointed a director of the Football League in 2006 and subsequently joined the FA in 2008 as one of the FL’s two representatives. Indeed, he was working for the Football League when Leeds United transferred ownership from oldco to newco when a CVA failed in 2007 and was party to the decision to allow Leeds to remain in League One. Did you know the Scottish FA and the Scottish Premier League tried to force Rangers into accepting the stripping of five league titles among a raft of sanctions in order to gain SFA membership in July. Of course, they might yet try to take that ultimate sanction because the SPL have not called off their investigation in Rangers’ usage of EBTs and how they may have affected players’ contracts – despite the court verdict. As Charles Green says, strange things happen in Scotland.

this whole smashing up Manchester thing gets right on my tits. There was reported in excess of 200,000 Rangers fans in Manchester. How many were involved? couple of hundred or more? Are we all to be tarred with the same brush? I, like every person I know who was there, wasn't aware of any trouble until the news the next morning.

1. Information Confidential to HMRC was leaked. So someone within HMRC leaked it. How difficult is that to understand? 2. I think you will find you are wrong. The only tax owed is that accrued by Whyte not paying. 3. Not for one minute do I think Craig Whyte is solely to blame. Murray is just as and even more guilty.

9 in a row. LOL best saying nothing rather than risk making a complete fool of yourself. Which you just did. Check the facts, you may get a surprise. :whistle:

Part payments? Hmmm. I give up with you, waste of time.

I don't recall giving anyone shit about Celtic?? We were found not guilty. That's what this thread is all about.

in short. We were accused if tax dodging. There was a blog emerged which had confidential details which could only come from HMRC. The profile of this was huge and the old saying 'tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth' sums it up. We were assumed guilty by all but everyone. The figures that we were supposedly owing being banded about was as high or more than £90M. Which put off a lot of potential investors. We the ended up with the shyster Whyte (David Murray denies knowing he was a crook) who had no intentions of running the club properly. He failed to pay NI and PAYE for 9 months (how the hell this was allowed?!?) This kicked off the chain of events that put us into administration. But the verdict came back and low and behold we were found not guilty. Had this verdict not taken so long, the chain of events would never have happened.

A slightly shortened version. The result of the Big Tax Case should have been an irrelevance to Rangers. The so called 'debt' was left behind when the new company took control of the club and a negative result would have had no impact whatsoever on our finances. Actually, the only scenario that could have had widespread implications is the one we now face. A favourable verdict has laid bare the fact that two years of vitriol, lies and abuse of the club and fans is just what we always thought it was – a dishonest campaign based on hatred and jealousy. I'm not going to go into the detail of the decision too much because it speaks for itself. Even the attempts to cling to the dissenting opinion, detailed in the written decision, are transparent in their desperation. In a small number of cases tax may be due but this is still unclear and the amount will be a tiny fraction of that alleged to have been outstanding. Suffice to say that Rangers' EBT payments have been clearly defined as loans. The dissenting opinion, whilst the right of Heidi Poon to put forward, is that of an accountant on a point of law and whilst it may provide comfort to those who desperately wanted to believe their own hype, it is not a verdict. The verdict is, in layman's terms, "Not Guilty". Two lawyers have overruled Ms Poon and it would take an act of extraordinary arrogance by HMRC to appeal the decision given they can only do so on a point of law. That is not to say they won't appeal, simply that they should quit whilst behind. Let us first take HMRC. I do not for one moment dispute their right to address this matter. It was obviously extremely complex and they felt they had a case. However, some of their conduct in this matter has been highly suspect. First of all, as stated in the MIH statement yesterday, there have been consistent leaks, the content of which it is hard to attribute to anyone other than HMRC. This is now the subject of a call for a police investigation and that is something we should all encourage. A government enquiry has also been called for and a petition for this is currently sitting at over 15,000 signatures in just over two days. I would urge anyone who has not signed it to do so here HMRC confidential info leak - e-petitions . Put simply, the people who leaked information to the Rangers Tax Case blog and others should, in my opinion, be going to jail. Beyond the leaks, there are questions to answer for HMRC as to how they allowed Craig Whyte to fail to pay NI and PAYE for 9 months - not something they would have allowed any business to do under normal circumstances. The conduct of the SPL and SFA will also need to be examined in the months to come. For the moment I will contain myself to saying that the decision by the SPL to continue with its sham tribunal into title stripping is now more transparent in its agenda than it has ever been. Perhaps they feel that, having come this far, the tribunal process must continue but any thought that title stripping remains on the agenda should be quickly dispelled. Are we really supposed to believe that the evidence collated by Celtic's lawyers, Harper MacLeod, will have more weight, accuracy or integrity than that presented already? Those who perpetrated this mugging are already running for cover. Rangers Tax Case has deleted all its content – too late. Articles are disappearing online – the rats are deserting the sinking ship. Apologies will be made and legal action may follow. We should remember those journalists and broadcasters who stood up for genuine honesty and integrity through this saga. The only stain that remains on the club is the tenure of Craig Whyte and it now seems reasonable to state that it could have been avoided with a more efficient and sympathetic approach to the tax case. Hopefully the full force of the law will be brought to bear on any wrongdoing in that instance and we can also put that episode behind us in the months to come.

good point. Will do

"searches for yawn smiley"

I appreciate that. Liverpool are your priority. Not expecting many to sign it. Just those who feel they would like to assist. Yes we did do something wrong to end up in Div 3, or more to the point Craig Whyte did. He was allowed by HMRC to go 9 months without paying NI or PAYE. Which ultimately kicked it all off. Thats one of the things that needs investigating.

Tax dodging? X Soap dodging? X Cheats X. Zero out of three is bad. Must try harder.

Thanks every signature counts.