Football clubs are under scrutiny by HMRC with Newcastle United and West Ham United's grounds raided today in a fraud investigation. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said it had deployed 180 officers across the UK and France and that premises in the north east and south east of England had been searched with business records, financial records, computers and mobile phones seized. In a statement it said that it had 'arrested several men working within the professional football industry for a suspected Income Tax and National Insurance fraud.' 

'Soft target'

Commenting on the raids, tax expert Tom Wesel, partner at Milestone International Tax Consultants said: 'HMRC has recently ‘discovered’ footballers as a soft target. Something that has also been recently demonstrated in the Rangers Supreme Court case and the enquiry into footballers’ image rights.These raids could be a scare tactic, forcing the clubs to negotiate over arrangements that were entered into in good faith with professional advice. Or, the clubs may have been daft enough to engage in what was obviously fraud. We don’t know. Nor, perhaps, does HMRC yet. Powers to raid and seize documents have been hugely expanded in recent years in very worrying ways - it’s at risk of degenerating into a lawless envy fest.'