Whyte knight, or full of ****e?

That’s the big question.

Let’s break it down and ask some very important questions on the bid for Rangers.

1. Why isn’t there anybody else interested in Castle Greyskull? Even Skeletor would rather have his bony eye socket ****ed by the beast master than try and procure Greyskull.

2. Ellis seems to me like a man with a plan. In the past Johnston has come out and said he’s pretty much a prick, with no serious bidding potential. Suddenly he finds some guy to back him in another bid and before you can say “It’ll make a cracking land fill, Whytey”, he’s got a compadre willing to invest in a football club that’s bleeding money. So what’s his plan for Greyskull? And does it include football in the long term?

3. Why is no member of the press talking about the multitude of companies of Whyte’s that have either been sued or went tits up? Or his propensity to acquire companies and property and asset strip them?

4, Why isn’t Whyte willing to wait until the tax issue is resolved? Surly if Rangers are forced into administration he’d get them cheaper. So why no long game for the only guy who’s interested?

5. Why has Rangers lost so much money after thinning their squad to the point of mimicking Weirs hairline? Can a couple of games missed because of dodgy weather and **** plumbing lose you millions even with Champions league cash?

There are more questions to be asked, but my catholic education means I can’t count past five, apparently. If I could count past five, I would have brought up King and his south African arrested shares and the general nick of Ibrox and the cost of repair. (That rhymed)

The whole affair smells worse than Girvan Loyal’s pish stained joggy’s.

If by some miracle it all works out well for them, I’ll hold my hands up and say I was wrong.

But right now I’m saying they’re up to their necks in it. If we need any proof of that then today’s ramblings by Johnston proves that. One minute he’s telling the world Rangers could go under, then after a kick in the balls he’s back with a statement to placate the money men.

After the abuse we took before Fergus saved us(If you’re old enough to remember those days), I can only sit back with a smug grin and raise a glass to karma.

For every fiver we spent, they got a future butt ****ing by the bank. Suck on that succulent lamb, Murray.

Hail, Hail

 

I can see it's causing you much distress. Im a rangers fan but I'm nit getting myself into a tizz over it. Why put yourself through the grief?

Have a wee lie down and chill

 

It's a shambles financially. I'm sure there will be a lot of angry Bears when the truth comes out about who was getting paid how much from Tax free trust funds.

 

How are you so sure? Are you privy to some inside information, or are you just indulging in an exercise of wishful thinking?

 

Going on what I have read - by someone who seems to be in the know - and Graham Spiers.

Spiers said he asked Bain last year if he or Murray had recieved tax free monies from said fund and Bain would not answer.

It may be made up but we'll have to wait and see.

 

http://rangerstaxcase.com/

 

i hope hmrc uses sdm wooden leg to beat walter ally diouf and that wee ****er naismith with it

 

does this mean the £700 million super stadium is going ahead or not ?

 

I don't get why this Whyte guy would want to push a purchase through now. He's the only bidder they have a big tax case soon, their interm results where poor and the league title is undecided.

If he waits till July he'll have the full year resluts which are meant to show a better debt level, he's know if Rangers are in the hard or less hard quailfing section for the CL and will have a much clearer idea about where they stand on the tax issue.

 

1. I don't get why this Whyte guy would want to push a purchase through now

Because he's a Rangers fan.

2. they have a big tax case soon

They might or might not, I doubt he would buy the club if the tax case was to become his problem. Also, the Players are the ones who beniefitted from not paying the Tax and as such, they would be liable to pay it back, where Ranges would have to pay the Players NI contributions. Anyway, it's still not clear what the tax thing is, to anyone.

3. their interm results where poor.

No they weren't. We made a profit of £13m.

 

2. they have a big tax case soon

They might or might not, I doubt he would buy the club if the tax case was to become his problem. Also, the Players are the ones who beniefitted from not paying the Tax and as such, they would be liable to pay it back, where Ranges would have to pay the Players NI contributions. Anyway, it's still not clear what the tax thing is, to anyone.


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This is not quite true. It will depend on the contracts - if of course it was written in the players contracts......erm....id imagine its not

anyway, the club will be the first port of call to get the money not the players - as it was organised by rangers and they set it up for more than one individual - so it will be easier to get the money that way - like with the other clubs who have had to pay....like Arsenal.

 

If I employ 100 guys and I pay them all without taking tax off them, they need to pay the tax, that is FACT.

I will be liable to pay the Employers NI contributions currently at about 13%.

Anyway, you/I/Phil Man Gobblegiver, don't know the complexities of the Rangers case, the similarities to Arsenal or Portsmouth, it's all speculation.

I'm not telling lies, but the guy who is sitting opposite me right now brother in law is part of the team looking into HMRC's case against Rangers, and he's a tim

Aye, so, it's all speculation just now.

 

But Rangers did pay tax - these players were not self employed. If they were self employed you'd be spot on.

BUT Rangers took tax off them for part of the wage....and didnt for another part. You cant have it both ways - its one or the other - that indeed being the whole reason its not quite legal what they did and why they may still be liable for the tax and a fine. T'was rangers suggetion to do this - not the players

 

That's incorrect anmortbhoy, if I pay you to work for me, and I produce a wage slip that show you that I have not taken tax off you, then you are liable to pay the tax yourself.

How do you know this? Who has confirmed this? Phil ManGobblegiver?

The players will still be liable to pay the tax back, not Rangers.

Believe me, I know

 

Rangers themselves have confirmed that the payments into the offshore trust related to image rights etc....therefore not the full wages....therefore PART of the players wage.

Rangers made the payments to the trust - not the players - therefore Rangers were the ones who paid the money to avoid tax (in the belief it was an honest loophole mind) - and rangers would be liable if that were found to be deliberately avoiding the payment of tax (even though ironically they thought it was allowed - as technically it was at that time!)

trust me i know about this ****e too

Rangers will be the ones who are liabile - if the case is proven - which knowing the tax man it will be as they'll make the rules up to suit themselves

 

All we can do is to wait and see.

The taxman is a ****

 

That we can agree on



I dont much care if rangers get hit by them or not in fairness - you'll be bought out either way! so it would have no impact other than costs someone somewhere some money but wont actually affect rangers in the grand scheme of things

 

Bigot

 

Anyone else notice the subtle difference in Rangers’ statements on Friday compared with earlier efforts to allay fears about the tax case? The club’s Chairman, Alastair Johnston’s prepared statement said: “We continue to vigorously contest HMRC’s challenge on the taxation treatment of the Trust and in doing so continue to receive reassuring opinion from tax, accounting and legal specialists.” Compare this to the previous mantra from the club: “On the basis of expert tax advice provided to Rangers, the club is robustly defending the matters raised.”

In any information vacuum, commentators tend to over analyse what information does exists, and I may be guilty of the same thing here. However, I detect a change in tone; a de-emphasis and lesser reliance on having followed “expert tax advice”. I think that many people would be interested in this aspect of the story, so we need to ask the question: “Who gave Rangers their tax advice?” The answer: Paul Baxendale-Walker.
Mr. Baxendale-Walker is a colourful character to put it mildly. Under the pseudonym of Paul Chaplin, he hosts a late-night TV show called “The Red Zone”. He also is the founder and owner of one of Britain’s largest pornography studios, Bluebird Productions Limited. However, he does have a basis to claim expertise in tax matters and is the author of a number of books on the subject, including one with Rangers’ own lawyer for the current EBT case, Andrew Thornhill QC.

Yet there have been clouds over his career and the restless Mr. Baxendale-Walker was arrested on 22 November 2000 and charged with conspiracy to commit fraud by the Serious Fraud Office over his role in the Balfron Group Ltd case. While one of the owners of Balfron Group was eventually convicted and jailed for raiding the company’s pension fund, Mr. Baxendale-Walker fought his charges and eventually won a stay a prosecution. However, the Law Society alleged that Baxendale-Walker had “given a false reference to a bank, which indicated that the person to whom he referred was a person of good standing when he had no basis for saying so”. He was suspended by the Law Society on 4 May, 2005 for three years for “serious professional misconduct”. However, a call to the Law Society to check on his current status revealed that he was ‘struck off’ on the 29 September 2006. This amounts to losing his “license” to practice law. He also became embroiled in a lawsuit with the accounting firm Deloitte claiming that one its employees, Aidan Langley, was telling potential clients that “Baxendale-Walker would advise clients to mislead HMRC“. Deloitte confirmed that the case did not go to trial, but would not elaborate on the nature of any settlement with Baxendale-Walker. While he personally cannot practice law in England and Wales, he is the owner of a law firm bearing his name that has qualified lawyers who can provide advice and execute his strategies.

It is with this background, we turn to his involvement with Rangers FC. A journalist contacted me through this blog this week to provide details of an interview he conducted with Mr. Baxendale-Walker in October last year. In the interview, he admitted that Rangers FC were a client and that he had finished another assignment with Rangers just a few weeks earlier. His discussions with Rangers started back in 1998, but the trusts did not get implemented until 2000. The timing coincides with Sir David Murray’s now legendary bombast during the Succulent Lamb interview with James Traynor which included statements like: “Bring on the next 10 years, there’s more to come for Rangers.” That Celtic had just stopped ‘ten in a row’ and had been taken off the financial life-support system under the leadership of Fergus McCann around the time that the discussions about ’increased tax efficiency’ started cannot be ignored. That its actual implementation coincides with Martin O’Neil’s revitalisation of Celtic and the 6-2 victory over Rangers in August of 2000 also seems noteworthy.

While Baxendale-Walker defended the advice given to Rangers and expressed confidence in a Rangers victory, when challenged on the suitability of EBTs for distributing payments for contractual obligations, he admitted that: “the Rangers case is the test case“. That the man whose law firm developed Rangers’ EBT strategies is conceding that the club will be the guinea pigs for their own implementation of EBTs should be a cause for concern.
The journalist told me that he had a sense that Baxendale-Walker had delivered a ‘canned-product’ to Rangers and had not been deeply involved in the mechanics of its implementation. He felt that it was unlikely that Baxendale-Walker or any of the staff at his law firm would have been tracking which requests for loans from the EBT were for contractual obligations and which were not. So, it is quite possible that Baxendale-Walker gave perfectly good advice. The questions are over what Rangers did with it.

Aside from the doubts which their own tax advisor’s comments raise about Rangers’ use of the EBTs, one wonders about the quality of leadership at Rangers. Was this really the only lawyer from whom competent tax advice could be obtained? Back to the subtle change in wording in Rangers’ statements in their defence: do they betray a desire to lessen the focus on the original tax advice received? The reality is that Rangers took a legal tax strategy that was suitable for a narrow set of circumstances and forced it into a hole into which it was not designed to fit.

 

Knights in Whyte Satin would have been a better title.

Or

Knights in Whyte Shatting.