Quote ="Highlander"The Wakey forum - as a bit of a deflection tactic from their own woes are guessing which other clubs are screwed over image rights - Oh look! Bulls are casually assumed to have "image rights" probs.'"
Got it in one.
If any of them want to see the Bulls' take on the scope for exposures to the HMRC investigations, all they have to do is go pay £1 for our 2008 accounts online from Companies House. Unlike Wakey's (again), our accounts were (as always) filed on time. And, unlike Wakey's, ours are a "full" as opposed to "abbreviated" set so you get a lot more info.
I suspect any club - across all sports - that has employed players who have been paid - by anyone - for their image rights, will be at some risk of additional liabilities once HMRC firm up on their interpretations and assessments. Likewise those who have employed players who have benefited from payments to employee benefit trusts.
So yes, the Bulls too could feasibly (that's the word the club used) find themselves queried by HMRC over the treatment of image rights payments. But everything I hear and read continues to suggest the club see no significant exposure, unlike I suspect certain other clubs who must surely be... "bricking themselves" was the term, I think? And that view has clearly been accepted by the auditors in the latest accounts, where if the club was aware of any quantifiable significant exposure then provision would have had to have been made.
The club have stated categorically that they have never used employee benefits trusts. I feel sure other clubs have - they are even referred to in the RFL Salary Cap rules - and I have always been concerned that HMRC will seek to overturn some of these arrangements as being tax evasion not legit avoidance. No a problem for the Bulls though.
