Thetownend.com

http://www.southendunited.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10444~1932006,00.html

The HMRC seem to be losing patience with football teams, the football authorities need to do something about the level of debt within the game before it implodes thank god we have Fitton and Co.

Been quite a few synergies between our teams over the last year, so i read their board a fair bit. I think they are in real deep crap, although a lot of the fans are in denia, as were a lot of ours in the dark days.. I can see why though, as from the outside their chairman and board seem to be very like our dear departed group, lots of spin and half truths, and barely believeable lies, whilst they are getting deeper and deeper in the mire. Wont be long before their fans either need to wake up, or see their club go under. We should send some orange hats, and our old banners, they are going to need something.

In my dealings with HMRC they have always been complete and utter bastards. I'm surprised that any business gets away with it for so long to be honest.

They did an audit on a company I used to work for that went bust. They found that they had not been deducting tax for my company car over a period of a few years. The first thing I knew was a demand for the back tax of about £4k. On ringing them and claiming innocence (I didn't bloody know that the company accountants were incompetent) they followed it up almost immediatley with a suspended bankruptcy order that I could only avoid by paying the outstanding amount over a year. That was £333 a month, unbudgeted and non-negotiable. Pay it late and the order was in place.

Southend are getting off lightly.

There was an article in a newspaper at the weekend about where Southend got the £2.14m, which they paid to HMRC a few months ago. They got it as a downpayment from Sainsbury's for the Roots Hall site, when they move to their new ground, which since all their money problems won't be soon...

That is so true, HMRC are utter cunts, they hate small businesses

They hate everyone, same happened to me as Talk Talk, to the tune of 1.5k taken out of my wages over a year. That Hurt!

They do indeed hate everybody. I just do not understand the mentality. There is no give whatsoever.

FFS, I pay over 50% of my income in tax and NI now. Like a good boy. Last year I was out of work for three and a half months between the end of Jan and mid May, so I was owed a tax rebate. After chasing it, what was I told? 'No, sorry, we have found a slight discrepancy on a tax credit five years ago, so we are witholding your refund'.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. That was a grand that I overpaid and didn't get back.

FUCKING CUNTS

Do people not check their wage slips then?

I would guess that you have an intimate understanding of your tax code, Si. Unfortunately most people just look at their net pay.

Seriously though, unless you have to do Self Assessment, why would anybody pay any attention to their tax code? It's just a bit of laser print on your pay slip.

I might be wrong but I thought Si Pie was on a wind up

Who Si? Nah...he's an accountant. He doesn't have a cynical bone in his body...

I dont actually. I have no idea the exact amount i get paid each month.

With regards to Southend we've seen it all before here. It doesn't look great for them.

I couldn't make sense of the article on the Southend website. They seem to be arguing that the money they paid wasn't allocated to the outstanding payments in the way they wanted it to be - they're not actually saying they have over paid. With HMRC saying it doesn't matter as you owed us all of the money anyway and it has been used to clear your debts.

But either way, HMRC can't issue bankruptcy / winding up orders - they can only make an application for them to the courts. If there is a valid dispute over the amount owed then the order won't be issued, simple as that.

The reason HMRC get pissed over the late payments is that the money in question is from employee tax and national insurance that has been deducted from wages. So the money was never even the clubs in the first place.

That sounds like an offer to me ;)