Footballers who aim from the HMRC in the tax scandal

Former footballers accuse the HMRC of “maintaining” investment scandals financially.

A growing number of previous ones Premier League Stars have developed to accuse financial consultants – and in a broader sense, Hmrc– Of what they call “financial care” and claimed that they were manipulated in failed investment systems in which they owed tax sentences due to millions.

At a full meeting in Westminster, a new all-party parliamentary group heard emotional statements from players and activists about investment fraud. The session included appearances by the former English international Danny Murphy and Brian Deane, who have become over the tribute of these plans – and the persecution of HMRC – about their lives.

Murphy, who is now working as an expert for BBC and Talksport, informed his own experience with a tax burden of 2.5 million GBP after investing in a film program to offer tax relief. In 2019, he lost a legal proceedings over £ 1 million, which was borrowed by Couts Bank to finance the investment.

“I couldn't imagine a brilliant place as a football club to find victims,” ​​Murphy told the panel and described how players would look for financial advice to older teammates or managers, just to be presented to predatory consultants. “They are not footballers, they are young men who have manipulated. People cannot understand why they came into this position. They feel silly – it adds shame. People have gone through hell. Some are still there.”

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Murphy, who insists that there was no intention to avoid taxes, described the plans as exploitative and said: “What happened was care.”

Brian Deane repeated Murphy's feeling and revealed that the consequences of poor financial advice pushed some former players to the brink of suicide. “I saw how the friends of friends of friends broke it,” he said. “It affects your health and well -being.”

The activists argue that footballers – although they are wealthy – were used during their career and wrongly attacked by HMRC. They compare the situation with the Post horizon scandal, with some say that HMRC lacks the ability or the will to pursue the real criminals behind such schemes.

“It is great injustice,” said Carly Barnes-Short, co-chair of the investment fraud committee. “These young men were exploited by those who trusted them to take care of their money.”

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Alex Sobel, Labor MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, agreed: “This is financial care.” He argued that the HMRC should concentrate on the fraudsters, not on the victims. Lord John Mann continued and asked HMRC's logic to pursue losses on the “fictional income” from hypothetical investment returns. “It's not real money,” he said. “It's potential money. They harden people about that.”

In the meantime, many observers point to the unpleasant contrast: While these former athletes are exposed to aggressive enforcement, tech giants such as Amazon and some ultra-rich people often seem to navigate with much greater fortune in the tax system. The problem is not whether footballers should pay their fair proportion – you should – but whether justice in all areas of society is applied quite.

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An HMRC spokesman replied: “We sympathize with people who may have lost money by entering such agreements and doing them on a fall. All taxpayers are taken seriously.

This is not the question of whether footballers are above the law – they are not. However, it is important to consider their stories not only through the lens of fame or finance, but also, but also, but as a warning stories of trust and systems that could not protect. Although it is true that these men were well paid, they were also young and often bad for the financial world that they had come into. If the calls grow for reforms, we have to hope that justice will become more balanced, which aims at the architects of fraud and not on the manipulated architects. Ultimately, these problems require a human reaction – not just a financial settlement.