TAX NEWS - 2010

MP calls for video games tax relief to create more than 3,000 graduate jobs

Luciana Berger MP spoke up in favour of introducing video games tax relief in last week's Budget debate and said that research indicated the tax break would create or save 3,550 graduate-level jobs over five years.

Ms Berger said that the video games industry was an important and growing knowledge-based industry employing more than 28,000 people in the UK, more than a third of whom were carrying out graduate-level jobs in games development. However, she said the best developers were currently leaving the UK and going to Canada or the USA where the tax regime was more favourable, and pointed out that the UK games development industry had fallen from third largest in the world based on revenue in 2006 to fifth place in 2009.

She said, 'Interactive media industries are with us for the next century and we should be doing all we can to support the sector to be a world leader in the field. Just as we have film tax relief in the UK, the government should uphold the commitment both coalition parties made before the election to have a games tax relief.'


Disappointment over Budget abandonment of tax relief plans

George Osborne, the Chancellor, announced in last week's Budget that plans for tax relief for the computer games industry would be abandoned. Industry bodies responded with disappointment and a number of MPs have since signed up to an early day motion condemning the Chancellor's decision.

Michael Rawlinson, the director generation of the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers' Association, said that in the absence of tax breaks the government needed to work with the industry to address skills shortages and provide better access to research and development initiatives.

Richard Wilson, the chief executive officer of The Independent Game Developers' Association (TIGA), said TIGA would continue to press for support for the sector. He said, 'Unless the coalition government introduces games tax relief or a similar fiscal measure then the UK will forfeit millions of pounds in inward investment, jobs will be lost and we will cease to be a leading developer of video games.'