Premier League clubs owed taxman millions
New information suggests the two most successful football leagues owed the taxman £22m for the tax year ending April 2010
THE BIGGEST clubs in the country owed HM Revenue & Customs more than £20m.
The taxman was owed £22m from both the Premier League and Football League in PAYE, VAT and National Insurance Contributions, for the last tax year ending April 2010, a freedom of information request by sportingintelligence found.
The 20 Premier League clubs were estimated to owe £14.4m consisting of £8.6m of VAT debts and £5.8m in PAYE and NIC.
Clearly Portsmouth FC ran up significant debt to numerous creditors, including HMRC,” Dan Johnson, the Premier League’s head of communications, told the publication.
“However, the Premier League’s starting position is that there should be no debt to HMRC, which is why we have introduced a raft of financial criteria to encourage clubs to run themselves in a responsible and sustainable manner.
“This includes quarterly reporting on any overdue HMRC payments and the ability to intervene if clubs get behind.
“When combined with HMRC’s new policy of, quite rightly, not permitting clubs to run up debts over time, this will more than mitigate this issue going forward.”