THE TAXMAN COMETH
It has been confirmed in the last week that QPR owes a substantial amount of money - quoted as £500,000 on the BBC website - to the Inland Revenue.
Up to September this year the Inland Revenue had "preferential creditor status", which meant that, if a company went bust, when its remaining assets were sold off to clear its debts the taxman was one of the first to be paid. The Inland Revenue therefore used to be fairly amenable to negotiating gradual repayment arrangements with football clubs that had fallen into tax arrears since it knew that if the club eventually went under it was unlikely to lose money.
In September this year the law changed: the Inland Revenue lost its preferential creditor status and now has to take its chances along with other creditors when a company is wound up.
As a direct result of this the Inland Revenue is taking a much harder line with football clubs that owe tax. Earlier this week Darlington FC went into administration to protect itself from being wound up after the Inland Revenue had issued a winding up petition over a tax debt of £400,000.
::
BACK TO NEWS AND VIEWS MENU
::