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...

Why don't you Jog on to the Bulls board, I do not give two hoots what you thing...

double post

Unnecessary - he has some very interesting and valid points to make.

And, within the AUP, I will post where I want until a Mod tells me I have breached the AUP and no longer can. If you don't want to read what I write, put me on "ignore, there's a good chap?

Shall I go tell folk who have taken up my offer of some input re the Trust that, on reflection, I don't give two hoots?


And thanks FTV - and its mutual.

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

Out of order. He's hardly trolling. I think he's doing the theft thing a bit much but he makes some good points.
Save it for the likes of CeeJames

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!!!

Are you any relation to Wildycat?

I'm just providing some knowledge and info of the ins and outs of preparing/going into liquidation.

Hmm - you snipped the bit where I said 'without disrespect to the individuals involved' to create a dig where none was intended.

Reading your post, we seem to be at risk of furiously agreeing with each other on most points, other than your apparent outrage at WTW's seemingly laissez faire attitude to their obligations to HMRC.

Yes, in theory, the Directors of all businesses *should* behave responsibly and with absolute integrity at all times; they don't though and they never will, and to think otherwise is rather naive. You're dead right on your final point though - the more complex and unethical the behaviour is and the longer it goes on, the harder it is to justify as anything other than a deliberate attempt to deceive.

Really?

What I saw was a rather snotty comment dismissing the bulk of the post you were claiming to respond to, followed by a generalised statement about bleeding a company of all its money.

With respect, your comments added no value to the discussion.

Carry on and take no notice, its all part of the show to keep the visiting guests on here entertained

currently 82

No your not, your generalising on something you know nothing about, as the previous poster pointed out, you are adding little (no) value.

The bulk of the two lined post of which, i quoted one.

Generalised, simply because, you cannot sum them all up as they differ but not by too much, although
if you wanted me to comment on every liquidation, i'll do it for £50p/h, just because its you.

Oh and did your post (the one i quoted above) bring much to the discussion?

BTW, i do want to see you come out of this. Get the club into admin and let someone wealthy buy them on the cheap and run the club properly.

Are you a inbreed of Adybull..???



We owe Tax, we are not going to pay it the club will go bust, some one will get it for next to nothing end off... so can we move on....

Suprisingly no, but we are of the same profession?

Well said

Nah - leave it to Adeybull; you're a dolt.

Snip was for no purpose other than to keep the quote short. I did think you were having a dig though - so if that was not your intent then my apologies for suggesting otherwise.

I'll not get into a debate about whether I am naïve or whether I really expect the absolute integrity at all times that you suggest I do (its a "no" to both anyway) since you are right, we have violent agreement on the substance anyway.

My anger at the club directors over the PAYE and VAT is not personal to Wakefield - indeed I remain far more angry at what happened at Broncos and Crusaders - the latter seems to have had unpaid pensions too, in which case Maxwell's ghost still haunts us. I am angry because behaviour like this makes it increasingly hard for other struggling clubs and businesses to get a fair hearing from and accommodation with HMRC. As indeed I fear you guys have found post-Crusaders?

I'll sort this out later when i have more time so for now its locked