HMRC Triumphs In Rangers Tax Case Appeal

HMRC have today won the latest round of the Rangers tax case, calling the EBT’s “redirected income” and quashing the notion that they were somehow loans.

An appeal is expected.

It has long been the contention of the Internet Bampots that during the years when Rangers was operating its EBT scheme that they were engaged in industrial scale cheating, using these revenues, which otherwise would have gone to the public purse, to enrich footballers and build themselves an advantage over rival clubs.

I have long argued that the result of these cases ought not to matter either way; whether or not Rangers had fancy lawyers who were able to dot every I and cross every T was never the bigger story here; the bigger story was that wilful, conscious decision that the directors of their club made that the next round of “success” was to be billed to the tax payer.

It might well prove that what they did was legal, although it’s difficult to see how they muster their case for an appeal on those grounds, as it was difficult to believe this case initially fell in their favour to begin with, as blatant as some of it was … but legality and morality are two very different things and there was never any question that what they did morally reeked.

This verdict doesn’t affect the NewCo. Not directly.

But one of the people who sat on the board during the time when these decisions were taken is the current chairman of the club.

He already has criminal convictions for tax fraud in South Africa.

Now he faces being branded a co-conspirator in a scheme which a court in this country has just said amounted to tax avoidance.

A lot of people have a lot of serious questions to answer in light of this, including the former President of the SFA, who was allowed to swan off into the sunset with his pension despite having opened the Discounted Options Scheme, the Wee Tax Case, and had full knowledge of its larger, more complicated sister scheme … or scam as it now stands.

This matter clearly isn’t at an end.

A lot of people around the country will be grievously worried today though, because should this verdict stand Hector will be knocking on their doors and asking to see their wallets.

Amongst them are many of Scotland’s media darlings and mates.

I laid out the scale of this in my second ever article for On Fields of Green, which you can read by clicking the link at the bottom of the page.

The numbers are astounding, and reveal the total consequences to society of what this club did, and what the SFA and others appear perfectly happy to leave on the historical record.

It stinks, and it always has, and this verdict simply opens up a valve and lets it out into another room.

For the good of Scottish football, and Scottish society, this matter has to be resolved in full, with all the guilty individuals made to pay back every penny and those who benefited from it indirectly made to give a full accounting of what went on, who knew and what the authorities turned a blind eye to.

This is a scandal that will not go away.

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