Already covered further up the thread.

Absolutely.

But it DID get Hood the column-inches he will have been looking for...!

This is interesting and what a lot of people have speculated about in the past. To be fair to everyone all points that have been gained this year should be scrapped and all teams should start with zero league points. After Easter.

Clearly the most fair solution!

It's pretty well what everyone KNEW isn't it?

I think we should be allowed to keep our 3 points. Just because it us.

Nope only dock the clubs involved in this bizarre financial jiggery pokery. We would be in the top 4 then.

Dont ask me about money I have no concept of the number zero

. It does rhyme with Nero though

The "active monitoring" of the salary cap raises an interesting point. I suppose a club could legitimately argue, whilst having no choice but to accept Revenue diktats, "Well, you didn't spot it, so how could we have spotted it"?

I don't know how far that defence would get, but it raises some interesting issues.

Is there no-one on here with any legal knowledge?

Suppose we'll have to resort to asking a lawyer then...?

What would be the point, given that you can't trust a word the buggers say?

There IS that I guess...bloody lawyers and accountants, scum o' t'bloody earth ah'll tell thee...

Buggers as well, apparently.

Nah, thats an extra for lawyers, estate agents, bankers and burglars only...

For general info on the thrust of the schemes under investigation: this a year ago by one of the top accounting practioners.
=darkredwww.kingstonsmith.co.uk/kingston-smith/sectors/Sports/Know_your_rights.htm

The salient phrase is “The crucial point is that the image right which is usually assigned to a separate company is not in any way geared to employment duties as a rugby player or to his performance on the pitch or elsewhere or as an employee as such. The quantum of the respective amounts has to be proportionate.”
Thus we would expect the club to have documentation in place to demonstate that the "Image rights" payment is equal to the club's financial gain by using such.

We at Tickitt, Additt and Chargem Accountants LP are somewhat surprised by the even more incredulous surprise now professed by some SL clubs.

In 2002 the image rights of David Beckham were challenged by HMRC when (according to the Daily Mail 25/4/2002) it was thought 1/3rd of his salary (estimated at £5m+) was to be paid in "Image Rights"= around £2m. Man U commercial sales were £23.6m at the time so this was held to be reasonable.
Since then HMRC have persued football players, then RU players and now RL players.
The writing has been on the wall for years. Why then have the clubs and particularly the governing body, RFL, not reacted before now?

The principle is not a grey area in the respect stated above, though the ramifications for individual clubs may well go deeper for reasons too numerous to itemise in this already long post.

Caveat : these are only our opinions and no legal inference as to validity of actual truth should be attached or implied nor relied upon.
Our legal representatives at Suam, Grabbit and Runne LLP of 13a, The Pit, Forster Sq, Bradford, BD1 1AA should be contacted in any case.

Thats a pretty useful summation from Kingston Smith. Could have done with that earlier when trying to explain things!

And a pretty amusing commentary on it too...!

Iiiii thank you. and i'm here all week!
Bet the lazy hacks pick up these details

HMRC might finally decide that they don't like this, and look to take some tax retrospectively, but the RFL would have been on shaky ground if they'd tried to stop clubs doing something which, at the time, wasn't counted as evasion. Should the clubs involved have stopped doing this when it became apparent (as it has been for some time) that HMRC were looking into it? Maybe, but then again I'm sure they'd argue that, while there was a loophole there, it made sense to exploit it (as long as they can afford any future bill that may arise).

I doubt I'm sure the eventual outcome will be seen to affect clubs who have contracts in place with overseas players which will suddenly cost them more, as we saw from Wigan a couple of years back the powers that be won't allow payments to players to be deferred without counting on cap.

With respect Asim your post is ill informed and speculative at best.
There is no such thing as a loophole in tax law. Either a payment is within the tax regulations or it is not. Tax avoidance is a mechanism to arrange affairs legally within those regulations and tax evasion is to break them.

Yes, the clubs should have considered HMRC opinions on this issue years before and not burried their heads in the sand, and yes the RFL should have been aware of the same and advised clubs of their responsibitilies in complying with the tax appropriate regulations. Thats part of their role.

Agreed that the RFL cant force the clubs to make contract terms. but rather susect that when the sh@t hits the fan, as it will ,when the big bad IR wolf comes after the clubs there will be carnage.


But YES...

I'm fully aware of the differences, and more informed than anyone would want to be with regards to tax and HMRC, but this practice has been going on for so long, across a multitude of industries, that the RFL would have had one hell of a task stopping clubs from doing it without incurring their wrath. I referred to it as a loophole in the sense that clubs were using it to gain advantage rather than in terms of tax laws.

They may finally come decide this is evasion, lets get the clubs, but as there had been no judgement or clampdown when the practice started in SL I can't blame clubs for taking advantage of it (on the proviso that they could cover any future arising bill).

I think Warrington trying to offload Gleeson for a fee may well be a good indicator as to what the clubs affected feel might be about to happen, everyone knows this isn't a new issue but it will be interesting to see which clubs have buried their heads in the sand about it.

Bullas are now to be investigated by HMRC. Apparently we have listed 17 cleaners as playing staff.

You have got to laugh...