HMRC suspects football clubs and players of underpaying tax

Sixty-four per cent of Premier League footballers’ contracts now take a form which HMRC says is open to abuse according to new analysis by Pinsent Masons.

The research shows the same agent represented both the football player and the club in 494 of 769 contract negotiations in the Premier League last season. HMRC has expressed concerns that in these types of contracts there is a greater chance that tax will have been underpaid by the football clubs and players.

The tax authority is particularly focused on deals which claim a 50:50+ split of the agent’s fees between the player and the club because it believes that agents will inevitably work primarily on behalf of the player. If the agent is doing more of the work for the player than the club and the club is paying for the player’s share of the agent’s advice that is...