HMRC overstated the tax bill Rangers faced by over £50m. The real bill amounted to less than £2m per year over a 10 year period, this makes me feel sick to the stomach btw.
Copeland.org
without reading the whole thread, what is the real EBT tax amount? We owed £18mill in (well managed at that point) bank debt. Is that saying that the EBT debt was £2mill/yr for 10 years? Even just making that £20mill due in a lump sum, that would be £38mill due. Less than Hearts’ debt at the time.
And let’s look at the players that we lost anyway and likely conservative value on an open market:
Jelavic: £8mill (went for £6mill that disappeared in a distressed state)
Naismith: £8mill (outscoring Jelavic that season)
Davis: £4mill (renowned quality player entering prime of career)
Lafferty: £3mill (recognised internationalist goalscorer)
Aluko: £1.5mill (good winger who later proved ability in England but available on the cheap then)
Rhys McCabe: £800k up and coming talent holding down first team slot at Rangers.
Jamie Ness: £1mill another youth generally ranked above McCabe who had turned in some eye catching displays in old firm games.
Steven Whittiker: £2.5mill skillful wingback with goalscoring pedigree and substantial european experience.
Maurice Edu: £1.5mill. Highly rated American who had some great performances but had probably had enough poor ones to knock down his signing fee.
Allan MacGregor: £8mill. Scotland’s best goalkeeper. knocking £1mill off his lesser rival Gordon’s fee just because we never got any luck in transfers.
I take that as £38.3mill that we could have got in transfers just from the players that we lost anyway. Plus there were several other less illustrious names who would have got a few hundred k or who were later sold by Whyte. Now some were reaching the end of their contracts which would affect sale price. But, if the club was being run normally, we would not have been allowing that to happen.
It seems that our debt was always fully covered. And, if it was £2mill/yr then that was even easier to cover while retaining a decent playing staff. We’d have been a long way behind Celtic if we had sold all them without replacement. But we’d probably still have been second, especially if sales could be staggered to repaying £2mill/yr. And better cup runs, european money and SPL ticket pricing whilst not having our merchandise stolen would all have offset that considerably.