Huge tax bill 'could saddle Rangers with £80m debt'

• Sir David Murray has been trying to sell Rangers FC for two years

The Glasgow club has reportedly been handed a 24m "assessment" by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) after an investigation into offshore payments made to players during the past decade.

The club fears the fine, combined with interest of 12m and possible additional penalties, could reach up to 54m.

Combined with its existing debt of about 30m – which it is under pressure from Lloyds Banking Group to repay – this could leave Rangers owing almost 80m.

An Ibrox source described the situation as "desperate", and said: "We're already struggling to pay 30m we owe the bank. Another 50m could tip us in to the abyss of administration.

"We've been hit with a 24m 'assessment' from the taxman. The implications are horrifying. The interest could be 12m and there may also be a penalty element of between 12m and 18m. This is a desperate situation."

The tax bill relates to alleged loans that Rangers players received from employee benefit trusts administered by the club's parent company, Murray International Holdings, owned by Sir David Murray, who announced his decision to step down from the Ibrox board last August.

The club is expected to appeal in a process that could take a year. Though it has not commented on the size of the tax bill, Rangers chief executive Martin Bain confirmed HMRC "had raised an assessment for the club".

A football financial analyst said, however, that the HMRC was unlikely to force the club into insolvency. "Our experience is that, generally, the HMRC do not try to maximise their bills, and certainly, I would have thought, not gone to the levels where they put Rangers in danger of falling into some form of insolvency," he said. "Clearly, if you push a company over the edge, you will get a fraction (financially] of what you might have got.

"It has to be palatable from everybody's perspective, but that's not to say that the HMRC will look for their tax and will look to get the entirety of the tax they are due, but it may be that, once it's gone through the various authorities, there is a negotiated lesser sum due.

"It's when it comes to penalties that there's clearly a negotiation to be held."

It has been claimed that the club may attempt to stall any final demand in an attempt to find a new billionaire owner who would be able to foot the bill, but the analyst believed this was unlikely to happen.

He said: "I think anyone who buys the club will seek an indemnity from the current owners that, whatever bill they have to pay, will be ultimately paid through a reduction in the price they (the new owner] pay or simply by the current owners.

"I don't think anyone would want to take on that level of uncertainty."

HMRC is also investigating the use of employee benefit trusts by a number of English clubs.

The new revelations are the latest to emerge about the state of the Glasgow club's finances.

In March, team manager Walter Smith warned that Rangers' cash crisis was getting progressively worse, while senior officials have spoken of their fears that the club could collapse if it failed to stick to a budget reduction plan brought to them by Lloyds.

The plan is expected to demand severe cuts to the club and will be enforced within weeks if no buyer is found.

No-one was available for comment at Rangers yesterday.