Bollox, we pay tax (I assume you mean VAT) based on the VALUE of tickets sold. there is no direct relationship between the announced attendance and the amount of VAT we collect and pay

I believe we have to pay a form of income tax.

We pay corporation tax on any profit we make at our financial year end.

if anyone can let me know how much tax/VAT we pay on a 10,300 crowd I'd love to know

How do you think the VALUE of tickets sold is arrived at?

By the amount of income we receive for them. The announced attendance doesn't dictate it and to suggest that inflating the attendance figure is in some way fiddling HMRC is complete tosh

Which is the product of the individual ticket price multiplied by the number of tickets sold, yes?

but what if all 10,300 were concessions paying £10?

its impossible to tell from just the attendance figure, some paid £10 to go, some paid £50+ for a corporate seat

They will know exactly how many of each type of ticket was sold and how many of each type payed on the day.

the club will, but i doubt they post off all 10,300 stubs to the taxman

Indeed.

All of which detail has to be made available to the VAT man, so that he can make sure that you're paying the correct amount of VAT.

So - let's say we invent a few thousand fans to boost the gates. When the VAT man comes calling we have receipts for one number of tickets but an officially announced attendance that indicates that we sold a few thousand more. Difficult to explain and harder to prove.

To the conspiracy theorists, why are the club only announcing false attendances now? Why not announce 20,000 every week (all paying concession prices, of course) and be the biggest supported team in the country? Why announce an attendance that is well below our average, that still shows that numbers are dropping off with the dross being served up? What are the club gaining by announcing the lowest crowd figure for a long time?

Really? i'm wrong?

So the 2 guys in charge fo the gates who i know personally must be lying then.

PS. You got back from the game quick

Yes.

Why would two guys operating the gates know if we counted passholders? Do you not think they may simply have made the assumption that we do because City do?

How would the voucher scheme work if we did?

The club will report VAT collected and I'm sure this will be 100% correct. It has nothing to do with how many people we announce at a game. If the club has a policy of counting non attending passholders, sponsors guests, press freebies, premier club members (who don't go through a turnstile so attendance at each game can't be counted) etc then it has absolutely no bearing on the VAT we pay. You're usually quite understanding of common sense issues but obviously not on this one