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UK games industry

Tories urged to include tax relief in this week's policy proposals.

April 19th, 2010

Further to comments made by Ed Vaizey, the Conservative Spokesperson for the Games Industry, to Develop, TIGA today called on the Conservative Party to include the introduction of Games Tax Relief in their set of policy proposals expected this week. TIGA, the trade association representing the UK video game industry, welcomed Mr Vaizey’s commitment to supporting the industry in his comments to Develop (see http://www.develop-online.net/news/34496/Conservatives-to-publish-tax-plan-next-week).

Jason Kingsely, Chairman of TIGA and CEO and Creative Director of Rebellion, said:

“The UK video games industry will be interested in examining the Conservative Party’s policy agenda for our sector. It is absolutely critical that the Conservative Party gives a clear commitment to introduce Games Tax Relief at the earliest opportunity, if elected to Government, after the General Election. A commitment to Games Tax Relief is the litmus test for all politicians in this election campaign as far as the video games industry is concerned. Only if Games Tax Relief is introduced will the UK video games industry be able to compete on a level playing field with our overseas competitors. All other policy proposals are entirely secondary to Games Tax Relief.”

“TIGA’s policy paper, Investing in the Future: a Tax Relief for the UK Video Games Development Sector, gives a clear blueprint for a Games Tax Relief: we urge the Conservative Party to adopt it as official policy.”

The essential elements of Games Tax Relief are as follows:

• Eligibility for Games Tax Relief would cover any company within the scope of UK corporation tax;

• Video games would need to pass a cultural test, scoring against criteria of European heritage and game locations, languages, innovation, narrative, and location of development and key development staff;

• Games Tax Relief would be calculated and applied in a similar manner to the existing tax relief for British films; and

• There should be three rates of relief in order to benefit large and small games studios: 20 per cent of core expenditure for budgets above £6,000,000; 25 per cent for budgets over £3,000,000 million but less than £6,000,000; and, 30 per cent for budgets of over £100,000 but less than £3,000,000.

Games Tax Relief will:

• Create or save 3,550 jobs;

• Increase and safeguard £457m in new development expenditure and ‘saved’ development expenditure that would be lost without tax relief; and

• Increase and protect £415 million in new and saved tax receipts.

Ends

Notes to Editors:

About TIGA:

TIGA is the trade association representing the UK’s games industry. The majority of our members are either independent games developers or in-house publisher owned developers. We also have outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities amongst our membership.

TIGA's vision is to make the UK the best place in the world to do games business. We focus on three sets of activities: political representation, generating media coverage and developing services that enhance the competitiveness of our members. This means that TIGA members are effectively represented in the corridors of power, their voice is heard in the media and they receive benefits that make a material difference to their businesses, including a reduction in costs and improved commercial opportunities.

For further information, please contact Eva Field, TIGA PR Manager on: 07814 039 983, or email eva@tiga.org.

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