Wayne Rooney is among a host of stars who have beaten HMRC in a fight over a £263million investment scheme which built developments in Tyneside.
The taxman argued the England legend and hundreds of celebrities had benefited excessively from tax relief for the project to build two data centres at Cobalt Business Park in North Tyneside , the Mirror reports.
The centres are now trading under the name Stellium Datacenters.
But the High Court ruled against HMRC so some of the investors who have already paid tax demands will be able to claim money back.
Rooney is among 675 investors, including comedian Jimmy Carr, Arsene Wenger, Roy Hodgson, the late Status Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt, and Lady Elizabeth-Ann Redgrave, wife of Olympic legend Sir Steve.
In 2011 they put in £79m – an average of £117,000 each – towards the £263m Cobalt Data Centres 2 and 3 in North Tyneside , which were unused for years.
But they got back £131m in tax relief via the scheme to start economic growth in deprived areas.
It is not clear how much each celebrity put in.
There was no suggestion of wrongdoing by any of the investors.
An HMRC spokesman said: “We are disappointed with the decision and are considering an appeal.”
Carr’s tax affairs were scrutinised after he was named among investors in a tax avoidance scheme.
In 2012, he admitted making a “terrible error of judgement”.
In 2016, according to Companies House, he resigned from the Cobalt investment.
That year, some investors received accelerated payment notices, which meant they had to pay HMRC first. Some then appealed to a tax tribunal.
A spokesman for Hodgson and Wenger said then they were “pleased to invest in Government-backed programmes which will hopefully help to generate new jobs.”
Lady Redgrave also said she had done so “in good faith on advice of my financial adviser through an investment scheme”.
Last year Rooney’s spokesman said he always paid “all UK taxes in full and in accordance with the law of the time”.
On Monday he declined to comment on the ruling but scheme backer Harcourt Capital LLP was said to be “very pleased.”
A spokesman said it showed, based on the law and custom and practice, that the HMRC had been wrong to deny enterprise zone allowances to their investors.
