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.

certainly not unusual in the context of Ted Richardson.

Cant be bothered with the second point of your post.

When you're facing going into liquidation generally, you bleed the company dry of money, paying creditors and leaving some aside for HMRC and then directors' take what ever is left. Quite obviously this hasn't happened.

Did I tell you? I may be an accountant by profession, but I work in business, in the real world. Little of my role involves (financial) accounting, whereas a large part of it indeed involves actual people, things and money. Has done for many years. If I did not feel I was reasonably well qualified to comment, I would not have.

And for that reason, I very much agree with most of what you said in your post, once we got that dig out of the way.

But what happens in RL etc clubs, with the scale of unpaid PAYE and VAT and HMRC usually being the largest third-party creditor is in fact very unusual compared to most businesses. This very much reflects the fact that the biggest cost by far of a RL club is people, and large supplier and bank creditors are generally thin on the ground because banks won't lend to most RL clubs and big suppliers are wary. So instead of the bank and the suppliers being used to take the strain, and the ensuing pain, clubs resort to HMRC. Who are totally sick and tired of it - you guys have already done it once, don't forget, and HMRC finding their £1/2m was the only significant unpaid third party creditor when London Broncos went under totally incensed them. As will the total and utter scandal that is Crusaders which I feel sure has helped your situation not one bit.

The point I am trying to get across is sort of alluded to in your last paragraph. When you are running a RL (etc) club, and you get seriously behind with paying the PAYE and VAT - and I'm not meaning just a month or so: as you say, many businesses do that, although more think twice now they have brought the penalties in - then unless you can see a clear way of rectifying the position quickly, you are insolvent. And the directors have a responsibility to act accordingly as soon as that becomes clear - or ought to have become clear. And not keep trading on and misleading the fans and employees and everyone else while the situation gets worse and worse. Since then it becomes harder and harder to justify over-optimism or stupidity, and easier and easier to see it as misappropriation or theft or whatever you want to call it.

Bit of a generalisation innit?
Whatever anyone else "generally" does, doesn't have the slightest impact on what we may or may not have "actually" done, so while you are guessing, you are wasting your time.
And I can't be bothered!!!