Keely Leeds
U-19's
User is Offline
Joined: 11 Jun 2007
Posts: 155
6528 FF Points
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:51 pm Post subject: MPs demand Leeds United answers |
|
|
Taken from http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/spor...icleid=2981229:
A TREASURY minister was today being asked to look again at why Leeds United was allowed to get away with not paying back £7m of taxpayers' money it owed.
Three senior Yorkshire MPs were meeting Dawn Primarolo, the Paymaster General, in her Whitehall office.
Colin Burgon, Labour MP for Elmet, Phil Willis, Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough and George Mudie, Labour MP for Leeds East, were asking her to review a decision not to pursue a £7m debt owed by United to HM Revenue and Customs.
Normanton MP and fellow Treasury minister Ed Balls was also in attendance at the meeting.
The club's administrator KPMG were unable to recover the £7m owed to HMRC, as it put together a controversial rescue plan which was agreed earlier this month.
This prompted Mr Willis to table a hard-hitting parliamentary motion which urged HM Revenue and Customs to "take action to challenge the Administrator's decision".
He told the YEP that he will ask Ms Primarolo to explain "the steps the Inland Revenue takes to protect the interests of taxpayers".
As the minister in charge of HMRC, Ms Primarolo has the power to order the tax collecting agency to legally challenge the administrator's decision.
Mr Willis said: "If your readers are a month behind with their tax returns, they will get a £100 fine and that fine will increase in severity.
"Given that the tax man chases ordinary individuals for reasonable sums of money, what steps are the government taking to recover considerable sums of money?"
He will also question the "role of the administrator to place on public record information that is in the public interest about public companies".
Mr Burgon added: "I want to press the Treasury on the level of oversight the Inland Revenue had on Leeds United and how come the monies added up to £7m.
"This is public money and that money could have been used for example to build two new primary schools in Leeds."
And Mr Mudie said: "It's really in terms of Phil Willis' Early Day Motion and in particular the part that relates to the Inland Revenue, who I believe lost money on the basis of the firm going into administration.
"I am told the Inland Revenue could force another look at it."
Sports Minister Richard Caborn has told MPs he will be holding meetings with the Football Association, the Football League and the Premier League to discuss club ownership.
He said: "Indeed there is a meeting in the Treasury on Tuesday with a number of my honourable friends (MPs), with Treasury officials to look at this question of share ownership."
A Culture, Media and Sport Department spokesman later stressed that Mr Caborn's meeting with the FA, the Football League and the Premier League would be separate to another meeting he is holding with Treasury officials and MPs, which will discuss the issue of ownership at Leeds United Football Club.
_________________
|
|
