The local cricket clubs bowled over by HMRC tax bills
This story, ostensibly trivial, makes me cross. It seems that high level tax avoiders are now quite brazen in telling HM Revenue to “put up or shut up” in terms of tightening the tax laws, whilst those who play by the rules (literally in this case in terms of cricket) are open to big bills. I am not saying that people and organisations shouldn’t pay their tax. I am however questioning whether the deployment of staff and attention is appropriate in an HMRC set up which can spend hours choking local sporting initiative whilst writing off millions in unpaid revenue for the likes of big merchant banks. What’s more actions like this disincentivise local people from organising the kind of activities which keep their areas fit and healthy. The article itself tells us:
The letter was polite enough. “Could we come and look at your books,” was the message from the tax authorities to Sawbridgeworth Cricket Club in Hertfordshire.
Tax inspectors spent almost five hours going through the club’s neat and detailed accounts, asking questions about payments to staff. The result was a bill for £14,403, an assessment of what the 151-year-old club owed the Exchequer in untaxed earnings of bar staff, accommodation and perks for professionals and a series of other items dating back to 2008.
Val Waring, chairman of the club, which plays in Division 2 East in the Home Counties Premier League, was stunned when the bill arrived.
“I thought the club might have to close and that would have been a disaster,” she recalls.
Similar scenes are being played out at minor cricket clubs throughout the country as HM Revenue & Customs teams extend inquiries down to the grassroots of the summer game.