Video games industry will keep battling for tax relief

By Alistair Houghton on Jan 7, 10 10:24 AM

VIDEO games body TIGA says it will not give up in its battle to win tax relief for the industry.
The UK video games sector is a world leader and a key employer in Merseyside, with companies such as Sony employing hundreds of people in the region.
But industry leaders warn that leading position could be put under threat unless the UK Government offers the sector tax breaks.

They say that, without such support, developers could move to countries such as Canada where governments do offer tax rebates.
Dr Richard Wilson, chief executive of TIGA (The Independent Game Developers Association), has led the Campaign for Games Tax Relief - and he says the industry will keep the political pressure on ahead of this year's General Election.
He said: "The state of the current political cycle, with the election fast approaching, created an additional hurdle for TIGA's campaign to surmount.
"TIGA's campaign for Games Tax Relief has yielded real benefits. The profile of the industry among ministers and policy makers has never been higher.
"TIGA will continue to campaign for Games Tax Relief or an equivalent fiscal reform, in order to make the UK the best place in the world to do games business. Only the faint hearted would give up now."
TIGA was invited to put its case directly to Government - and submitted a 67-page report to back up its case.
Dr Wilson said: "Some at HM Treasury doubted our assumptions that absent Games Tax Relief job losses in the video games industry would be permanently lost to the UK economy, believing instead that workers lost to the industry would simply move to other equally high-technology industries.
"It would be naive to accept this point at face value. This is a standard Treasury line. It ignores the evidence produced by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts about the threat of a brain drain from the UK games industry to competitor countries."
TIGA also welcomed news that the Scottish Government plans to launch a pilot programme of tax breaks this year to support the games sector in Dundee.
Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios Europe employs 600 people across its studios and development centres in Liverpool and Runcorn.
Its Liverpool-based senior vice-president, Michael Denny, told the Daily Post in November that he hoped the UK Government would introduce tax breaks.