HUNDREDS of members of one of York’s biggest clubs could find out next week whether a tax probe will deal a “disastrous” blow to its future.

As exclusively revealed by The Press, the Inland Revenue is investigating the past financial affairs of Acomb Working Men’s Club – which has been running for 110 years – over claims that crucial documents relating to its staff were not supplied over a three-year spell.

Now a crunch meeting between the Front Street organisation’s management team and revenue officials on Monday is set to reveal the scale of any penalty which will be imposed – amid warnings that it could be as high as £88,000.

The problem stems back to the period between 2002 and 2005 and the alleged lack of information relating to the amounts of tax and National Insurance paid by staff at the club, which boasts 1,659 members, during that time which was submitted to the Inland Revenue by the then management team.

Following discussions with their auditors and the investigating team, club officials say they have already made a £15,000 payment in an attempt to lessen any potential penalty, as well as providing as many of the allegedly missing documents as they can.

Now they hope their co-operation will mean good news at Monday’s meeting. But secretary John Lane said a large fine would place the club’s future in serious jeopardy.

“Hopefully, this meeting will see us find out what this will cost us as this needs to be sorted out by the end of the current financial year, but we’re completely in the hands of the Inland Revenue now,” said the 58-year-old, who is a life member of the club.

“Until we know what the penalty will be, we don’t know where to turn, but we have done everything possible to co-operate since being informed of this problem and made the £15,000 payment on the advice of our auditors.

“That in itself has knocked us to the floor because we’re talking about a month’s profits. It’s removed our safety net and while we hope the Inland Revenue won’t penalise us further, they could turn round and tell us we have to pay more.

“If the penalty was around the £80,000 figure we have been told it could be, that would be disastrous and I don’t know how we would pay it – we might have to look at mortgaging the club, which would take it out of our control.”

John says the current threat is all the more galling after the current management transformed the £100,000 debt they inherited at the start of 2008 into a small profit – which has now disappeared following the Inland Revenue payment.

“It feels like we’re back to square one,” he said.

“We’ve been trying to take the club forward and push the community benefits of what it does, but now we have this hanging over our heads. We just can’t speculate on what will happen at all until we know what the Inland Revenue decide.”

HM Revenue & Customs has said it cannot comment on the investigation for confidentiality reasons.