TOPIC: An Interesting Article

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36266364

Spotted this earlier, makes for a good read.

Was just about to post that!!! the bit below was what got me wonder if the 3 brains in charge look at stuff like this

"You could be the main shirt sponsor, stand sponsor or whatever else. Let's say the profitable company pays £1m a year for that privilege. The profitable company has an extra £1m for expenditure, so effectively it saves tax on that £1m, and the football club has an extra £1m of income, which, because it has other losses, probably doesn't have to pay tax.

"But the other way for the owners is quite often if they've got a profitable company, they will acquire the football club underneath that company. Then what you can do is, when the football club makes a loss, you can surrender those losses to the profitable company.

"If that company is making £5m a year of profit, it would have £1m of tax to pay in the UK. But if the company is making a £5m profit and a football club underneath it making a £5m loss, you can just offset the two. Overall there's no profit and no tax to pay."

Dazwacky wrote:
Yes makes you wonder why Jenkins opts for option 1 and then only to the tune of 50k a year rather than option 2 of setting off CUFC.s losses against Pioneers profits.

The reason is NS that you can only group relieve profits if the profit making company owns more than 75pc of the loss making company-the reason why most loss making clubs are controlled by tycoons with more than 75pc.Simple!

Dazwacky wrote:
This is probably why I'm not employed by Alan Sugar but... why would a hard-headed businessman piss away £5m of profit on a football club to save paying £1m in tax on it? It sounds a bit like chopping my leg off to save buying shoes.

Correct-unless you have something to show for it at the end of the day,all you have done is save a fraction of the actual cash loss

Alan Sugar cites his dalliance with Spurs as a huge distraction in his career due to loss of opportunity on other more profitable ventures-something Fred said to me which is why I planned to step out of it after the restructure.

You mentioned previously you never spoke to Fred Andrew.

Irrelevant though but your right, theres not many if any owners that have made money on football clubs at our level at least. So you have to make it self sustainable.

Mullen

I spoke to Fred about Carlisle 7 or 8 years ago-not recently as stated but I do know he thought my proposal was the way forward

No problem, yes i believe Fred did mention to others that your proposal was the way forward, which it was.

Yes and with a stable platform,a far more attractive proposition to a billionaire!

Laffy wrote:
But as i understand the insertion of another company in the chain would allow you to do it.

Nope

Laffy wrote:
Well we.ll have to agree to disagree about that one then i messaged my man your reply and he came back in about 30 seconds and said somthing like " Yes i can see what hes saying [ meaning you ] but the way to negate that would be to place the football club in a group of companies the owned assets of which in total would equal more than 75% needed "

Alternatively if we were dealing with an open and honest man he could buy the Trusts 0.3% golden shares with a place on the holding co board and the same protection as they have now written into the articles something similar t think to what you were planing to do at a lower amount.

Or why not simply agree to sponsor the East stand each year for the exact amount that the football club lost in the previous year..

Sponsoring the Club would be my preferred option so long as the taxman agreed it was a deductible expense-nowadays,that's debatable after Gary Barlow,Jimmy Carr tax planning

Laffy wrote:
I thought that had been sorted in their favour as its still available to do as i.m always getting invites to invest 10k in the British film Industry and the bumf shows the logo of a couple of government depts inc HMRC surely if it was illegal theyd shut it down.

And the guy who wrote the article must have done some research to verify what he was saying although he definitely got a couple of things wrong over Andy Holts takeover at Accrington mind you at the speed he talks it doesnt surprise me.

If you call paying all the tax back sorted then yes,it's sorted.The 'arrangements' they pursued were very much at the seedy end of tax avoidance and are paying the price for it.

There are still legitimate film schemes but they involve hard cash,not the stuff these guys were pursuing.

I would stay well clear to be honest if offered something