Ladbrokes Coral Plc is looking to a scheduled February hearing in front of the UK Court of Appeal to reverse a £70 million tax judgment against it stemming from 2008.
Britain’s Revenue & Customs charged that then Ladbrokes “knowingly exploiting a 2008 tax loophole relating to loans between corporations and third parties” in order to lessen its tax bill that year.
The merged Ladbrokes Coral—which has been fighting the judgment for three years—lost an appeal in the UK Tribunal Court. In March, the betting firm was granted the right to appeal it’s the higher UK law court.
According to a report at SBC News, the case revolves around a 2008 scheme implemented by accountancy firm Deloitte which advised some of its partners to “deliberately” create “transacting subsidiaries,” in order to shift corporate tax charges under a single “loss generating” business unit.
HMRC maintained that in 2008 Ladbrokes Group suffered no actual losses and used the loophole to avoid paying corporate taxes. The customs s agency also said that nine other corporations which used the same type of scheme had conceded to the Tribunal and paid the taxes owed.
Ladbrokes legal teams have conceded that the scheme was implemented to “avoid tax,” however, the gambling firm stated that at the time its operational arrangements fell outside the scope of anti-avoidance rules, according to the SBC report.
