HMRC crackdown on footballers using tax schemes

Miles Dean, head of international tax at Andersen Tax, examines whether it was foreseeable that HMRC and the courts would end up not only attacking tax avoidance schemes (and winning), but also shutting down an industry that had gone out of control?

HMRC is closing in on tax avoidance schemes in the UK’s highly lucrative football industry. In August 2019, HMRC won a major victory against a £450m tax avoidance scheme which had been invested in by several footballers including David Beckham and Gary Lineker.

The scheme involved financing over 60 films and was operated by Ingenious Media. Despite battling HMRC in what became the longest-ever tax appeal tribunal- Ingenious Games LLP and Others and Revenue and Customs: [2019] UKUT 226 (TCC), Ingenious Media ultimately failed to overturn the adverse ruling.

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