Ally McCoist has said that Rangers ‘could have handled’ a £20 million tax bill and the club would not have gone into administration or liquidation.
The former Rangers striker spoke on talkSPORT after a report from the Times revealed that tax authorities overcharged the Ibrox club by £50 million.
McCoist, who became Rangers’ record goalscorer by netting 355 goals, also believes that this is a ‘massive’ ongoing issue and questions need to be answered.
READ MORE: HMRC overestimated Rangers’ tax bill ‘by up to £50 million’
He said: “It’s probably safe to say it was the most traumatic time in Rangers Football Club’s history.
“If mistakes have been made then people have to answer questions.
“The legalities of it are still ongoing, I think Rangers won a couple of court cases and then lost one.
“I was manager and Sir David Murray was the chairman. But the EBT’s go all the way back to I think starting around 2000 I’d imagine.
“A lot of clubs had them. There is no doubt about it. A lot of people felt, and I don’t know if it is correct or not, Rangers were a test case for HMRC.
“But the fact of the matter is we were reading the front page of the Times up in Scotland and they reckon that the tax authorities have acknowledged that they claimed too much from Rangers. That’s according to reports.
“I think the figure that they are speaking about - they claim is around £70m for using EBT's to pay players but that figure is now believed to be around £20m.
READ MORE: Taxman error blamed for Rangers downfall amid reports true liability just £20m
"It is a completely different outlook because that is a debt Rangers, in my opinion in that time, could have handled.
“If this is true, Rangers would not have gone into administration or liquidation.
“If the debt was £20m that could have been handled quite easily. It is a lot of money but it’s only £2million a year between 2001 and 2010.
“The fact of the matter is, had that been the debt, if you think about it, it would have been a lot more lucrative a proposition for potential buyers than it was with the bigger debt.
“This is an on-going issue, particularly north of the border, and it’s massive. It’s absolutely massive."
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