BURY chairman Stewart Day has labelled HM Revenue and Customs as "trigger-happy" after they launched a court action against the club over an unpaid tax bill, writes Tom Molloy.

It was revealed this week that the club face a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on February 15 to answer a winding-up petition, brought by HMRC over an unpaid tax bill for December totalling £156,000.

Day, speaking on Talksport, confirmed the bill was paid seven days late due to an administration error, saying it was partly down to an unexpected shortfall in cashflow following the postponement of their Boxing Day clash at home to Barnsley.

The Shakers chief is now looking to get the court date annulled and admitted he was "frustrated" by HMRC's decision to take the "legal route".

“I know HMRC are very strict on sporting organisations and have difficulty with things," he said.

"We always pay HMRC, we’ve never not paid our bills.

"We had a fixture postponed on Boxing Day that was going to bring in a lot of revenue as well, against Barnsley.

"There was just an administration error that was paid in full about seven days late from when it needed to be done.

"But HMRC wanted to try and take it down a legal route, which is a bit frustrating.

“It wasn’t a case of us not paying the bill, we don’t owe them a penny.

"It’s frustrating now that we’ve got to go and pay extra legal bills to have things removed when we don’t owe them a single penny at this moment in time. "We continue to pay our bills, we continue to progress forward but they are trigger-happy with football clubs.

"I speak to a lot of (football clubs) and they all have similar sorts of issues with them."

Day was also eager to ease fans' concerns.

He added: "It’s frustrating now because ultimately people look at it and go ‘oh, they’ve not paid their bills'.

"We have and we want to reassure the fans, we will always pay the bills.

"We continue to move forward as well. But they (HMRC) are just a little bit too trigger-happy, unfortunately.”