Govt moots game developer tax-break rethink
Less tax equals more games?
Tax breaks for the British videogames industry moved a step closer this week, after a government Minister admitted that the administration must “look again” at the issue.
Speaking at a games industry conference held in London yesterday, Margaret Hodge, Minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism, said that UK.gov needs to reconsider the issue.
The videogame industry, she said, “quite rightly makes the comparison between tax relief on offer to the film industry, and [the benefits available] for games".
Both France and Canada already give tax relief to local games developers, but Hodge admitted that the UK government is nervous about introducing a similar system in Blighty because of risk of cross-country funding wars.
No timetable for the government's reconsideration of the matter was given.
Several sectors of UK industry, most notably film production, already benefit from a tax relief system that offers double-figure percentage discounts to encourage movie makers to start shooting in Britain. R&D efforts also attract tax credits of between 125 per cent and 150 per cent of the cost of research endeavours.
France reduces games developers' tax burdens by 20 per cent, the same tax discount Georgia plans to offer game creators working in the US state. Canada's Quebec region provides games developers with a 37.5 per cent tax break.
COMMENTS
there is enough ways round taxes
Between the benefits system and taxes breaks / clauses this country is rife with loop holes and let them off schemes.
It's worth billions as it is and given the fixed pricing and monopolies at play like EA the money won't be here or stay here. It will just sit nicely in the states. Just like our oil revenue, airport revenue, gas and electric revenue (3 of them are german owned)
But hey, the government has no clue as we already know.
It will only mean a loss of cash for the government which means more on petrol, or cars for those that don't ride a bike...
I am off to declare my house a mosque so I don't pay council tax.
Why?
How is a system of tax breaks going to help the games industry? The only justification for this seems to be that it's "fair" with what happens in the movie industry. But the UK games industry is doing rather well without tax breaks, and I fail to see how anyone other than large multinationals (e.g. Sony) or home-grown millionaires (e.g. Molyneux) would benefit.
Pre-cognitive Powers Enabled
Someone, either one of our "Ban these Evil Games" MPs, or the Daily Mail will object to Government subsidies for evil murder simulators, and point the fingers in a Rockstar North-y sort of direction, rather than a David Braben / Frontier or Peter Molyneux / Lionhead sort of direction.
Also we want subsidies, grants and tax-breaks on the Playstation programming Masters degrees, specifically aimed at balding 30/40 year old Yorkshire people. For example.
