As the footballing world wait with baited breath to see what punishment Manchester City and Chelsea will receive, following Everton’s ten point deduction, I wonder if anyone was aware of another ongoing probe involving Newcastle United?
I had no idea that the club was being investigated, until I stumbled across an article in the Daily Telegraph dated the 29/11/23 and it involves agents fees, unpaid vat and unpaid national insurance.
The enquiry goes back to 2014 and includes probes during 2017 and 2018. HMRC issued notices to the club in January 2018 relating to alleged unpaid VAT totalling £2,034,802 plus interest between February 2011 and October 2016 and unpaid National Insurance totalling £4,250,714.01 plus interest, a court fee and legal costs.
Newcastle tried to get the High Court to rule that the HMRC return all the documents seized in those raids, but just this week the judge denied them as HMRC confirmed that the investigations are still ongoing and there will be a civil proceedings at the end.
Rather than these probes being football related, it seems to be more of an involvement by government departments – so, if found guilty, I can’t see any footballing punishment (points deduction etc) but more likely to be a financial punishment…. with all the oil money sloshing around St. James’s Park now, I don’t think that would be to much of a concern, but it’s remarkable how this has slipped under the radar of the public awareness… unless I’m the only one who hadn’t picked up on this?
While not affecting The Arsenal (as far as we know) at the moment, it does show the scrutiny being used in all areas within the footballing world to ensure everything is above board and squeeky clean.
Elliott Buss, a partner in Hacker Young accountants and a specialist in the taxation of sports clubs, says: “HMRC is really cracking down on the football industry to recover what it sees as a significant amount of unpaid tax. Football clubs are a subject of particular concern and HMRC now have these clubs’ tax affairs in their sights.”
“The growing proportion of agents’ fees being paid by clubs is drawing the attention of the taxman to the possibility that not all tax due on these payments is being paid.”
Remember, it’s being reported that the Spuds are being investigated with regards to the transfer of a player that dates back to 2014.
Let’s hope that the Arsene Wenger era was as clean as we all believe it was!!
ken1945
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