Too Costly To Reveal Costs of Rangers Case

HMRC has refused to reveal the costs of its ongoing five year action against Rangers, on the grounds that it would cost too much to find out the costs.

Despite worrying about the costs of disclosing costs, HMRC has confirmed it will contest the decision of an upper-tier tax tribunal to uphold an earlier ruling on what is known as the Big Tax Case. HMRC wants to pursue the club as a matter of principle, and there is a ­procedural hearing on its latest appeal on February 3.

The ruling that HMRC is contesting said that Rangers' use of employee benefit trust (EBT) loans to players and other staff was legal, and payments were not taxable.

Chris Graham, of the Union of Fans, the Rangers supporters ­coalition, is quoted by the Herald Scotland:

"This is extraordinary. Lawyers are ­meticulous about things like that, they clock all the time they spend on a particular client.

There are question marks over why they are continuing to pursue this when we know they have been offered to settle."

When asked what the costs were to date of pursuing the tax case HMRC, a representative said:

"HMRC holds information that falls within the scope of your request. However, we estimate that it would exceed the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) cost limit to deal with it."

That limit, he said, was the cost of one person working for three-and-a-half days.

"Normally, HMRC would explore with you how you might be able to narrow or refine your request so that it did not exceed the FOIA cost limit. However, in this case, I cannot see any scope for doing this.
Even if we had been able to find and extract all the information in the scope of your request, we would never release anything which could be linked to an identifiable person; be that an individual, company or any other entity."

It's not HMRC's money, it's taxpayers' money; taxpayers have the right to know what government organs are spending their money on.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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