Henry Patten will lose at least a quarter of his Wimbledon prize money after the defending men’s doubles champion was dumped out of the tournament. Alongside Finland’s Harri Heliovaara, the same team-mate he enjoyed SW19 glory with a year ago, the pair lost 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) to British duo Lloyd Glasspool and Julian Cash in the quarter-finals on Court 2.
Patten had previously been team-mates with Cash while Heliovaara was paired with Glasspool. The Brit, 29, hit the headlines earlier this week when he was slapped with the biggest fine of the tournament. The No. 3-ranked doubles player was hit with a £9,200 ($12,500) penalty for allegedly verbally abusing a member of staff. Patten sought to appeal the fine that was issued for an incident at an off-site training ground.
Having now lost, Patten’s £9.2k punishment means he will lose nearly 25 per cent of his winnings. He and Heliovaara take £87,500 home for their quarter-final run. With that fee divided between the duo, Patten and the Finn take home £43,750 each.
But two-time major winner Patten will lose £9.2k of that and faces losing more – with the tax man set to claim a chunk. Wimbledon earnings are fully taxable in the UK regardless of where a player is based.
HMRC are expected to take in £17million from the record-breaking £53.5m prize pool this year. Tournament organisers are required to withhold tax at a flat rate of 20 per cent on players’ core prize money.
That means they receive 80 per cent of the winnings in their bank account and any players who owe tax on top of that are required to fill in a tax return. British players, such as Patten, are likely to be entitled to £12,750 tax-free personal allowance which slightly reduces their tax bill.
But what is clear is that he will at least lose a few thousand pounds more to the tax man, on top of any other deductible expenses such as travel and accommodation costs. Patten confirmed he would contest his fine earlier this week.
He said: “On 2 July, I received a letter informing me that I had been fined and on the same day I responded appealing [against] the decision due to inaccuracies and procedural failures in the process.
“Despite this decision being under appeal, I am disappointed that Wimbledon sought it appropriate to disclose this fine to the media without indicating my appeal, which creates an unfair and inaccurate perception of the incident.
“At this stage I will merely say that I do not believe that there has been a full or proper investigation, nor has Wimbledon acted reasonably or fairly with due process.”
Content Source: www.express.co.uk