Adey - it happens all the time, very often with the express agreement of HMRC.

It's a fact of life (especially in the sort of economy we find ourselves in now) and is far from "theft".

I have little doubt that EVERY SL will have deferred crown debt to some extent at some point in recent years.

Any business that fails will owe PAYE/NIC/VAT to some extent simply due to the way in which the taxes are collected and paid, to call it theft is a bit much.

presumably though the jails aren't full of businessmen (or women, don't want to fall in that little trap!!!) who's business have gone bust and then been unable to pay tax as a result of it?
Not that i am suggesting for a minute he shouldn't, i'd have him cracking rocks by lunchtime!!!!!!

Of course it isn't theft, particularly not if you have agreed a payment plan with the person you have "robbed" on how to pay them their dues.

HMRC have been surprisingly accommodating with many smaller businesses in the current recession - provided of course they approach HMRC and agree a plan and stick to it! Just not paying and waiting for HMRC to act is rarely a wise move, and is usually a sign of an insolvent business, is it not? And you know as well as me what the law says about trading whilst insolvent? I'm not talking about being just a month or so behind either.

Its a subject I feel strongly about, to be honest, as you can tell. If using money that was never yours to pay other liabilities, with no certainty as to whether you can ever make that shortfall good, is not tantamount to theft, I really don't know what is. But I also said, on an earlier thread, that I have never been in the position where the only choices were to use monies due to HMRC for other purposes, or to initiate the insolvency process. The nearest I came was many years ago, when we were able to avoid asking the bank to appoint a receiver only because of an ongoing (and ultimately successful) rescue takeover, and the forbearance of our suppliers as a result. I pray I will never find myself in the position of having to make the choice, since by then the business would have been allowed to become insolvent anyway and the only choice I could make would be formal insolvency.

The term you're looking for is misappropriation. Theft implies the intent to permanently disposess, which does not apply in this case.

I say again: if you have used ("borrowed"?) money that was never yours to meet other obligations, and are unable to repay that money not only when due but on the extended terms you may have agreed, what else is that other than theft? You can play on semantics, and debate whether those responsible knew they would never be able to meet the liabilities or were just "hoping something would come up". If you prefer to call it "misappropriation" in legal terms that is fine by me - I was using simple words to try and get the message across - but the effect is just the same. Funds that were never the club's would appear to have been misapplied to meeting other obligations, would they not?

If your employer "misappropriated" your net pay or your pension contributions to pay other liabilities, and then was unable to pay you/your pension scheme, what would you call it? Would you call your employer a dirty stinking misappropriator, or would you call him a dirty stinking thief? When Maxwell did it with employee pension contributions, the world called it theft.

And I don't think HMRC would seek a winding up order if a business was indeed adhereing to an agreed repayment plan, since that is effectively a contract between the business and HMRC, is it not?

But you are firing bullets at me, yet I am very much on the fans' side here as I have made clear elsewhere! You should surely be firing all the bullets at the club management for getting you into this situation, as I am! Rather than seek to defend them? And the law says bad things about using taxes etc deducted/collected, for other purposes.

Being just a month behind is a sign of insolvency. You can be insolvent on a cash flow basis (unable to pay debts as they fall due) with a net positive balance sheet. In theory, every business with a payment plan with HMRC is insolvent by that test - doesn't necessarily follow that they shouldn't be trading.



I would venture that there is never absolute certainty that ANY HMRC repayment plan will be adhered to.



I come across such situations all the time in businesses with acute cash flow difficulties - pay the wages or pay the tax arrears. You can guess which one is more critical to a business and which one gets deferred. Non payment of wages in many (indeed most) business would absolutely lead to the failure of the business.



It certainly isn't a nice place to be.

That's right, it's all just semantics. Murder, manslaughter, what's the difference? Whichever way you look at it, someone's dead in the end...

double post

I agree. Plus Adey has been very supportive re: the Supporters Trust.

I have to say, without disrespect to the individuals involved, that all this outrage at an unpaid tax bill or the spinning of financial plates to aid cashflow, is a typical (financial) accountants view; in the real world of business (the one that involves actual people, things and money) as opposed to the world that exists only as a series of cells on an Excel spreadsheet, this is what businesses do all the time. Small to medium businesses in particular have the devils own job juggling outgoings against income - trying to generate new business, improve products and services, make technical innovations etc etc, all of which cost, whilst at the same time attempting to collect payments from customers to cover those costs. Ironically, the Government for whom the HMRC collects monies are one of the worst offenders in terms of paying their bills in a timely manner, so they contribute indirectly to the cashflow problems that cause this type of risky behaviour in the first place.

What Ted & Co *tried* to at WTW is not therefore particularly unusual; what does appear to be unusual however is the ineptitude with which they did it.