TIGA Unveils New Tax Credit Proposals To Add '65-75%' More Support For UK Industry

As the UK government prepares to set to work on its budget, the region's game developer trade body, TIGA, is again laying out its requests for tax credit support for game developers, hoping to gain more support using the current infrastructure. Many in the region viewed the defeat for the initiative in the most recent budget as merely a setback that could be surmounted by finding additional opportunities to support game development within the structure of the existing budget, as MP Ed Vaizey said when he spoke at the Develop conference last year. Others in the UK industry felt their proposals had failed due to a lack of specificity or scope for the initiative, and TIGA aims to address it with a new series of guidelines it recommended in a statement today that would modify existing R&D tax credits to provide better support for the games industry. The guidelines build upon an 85-page document TIGA submitted at the beginning of this year warning of a 24 percent decline in headcount through 2015 should the government fail to implement relief. "The scope of R&D tax credits credit should be expanded to include other associated costs incurred in the development of a new game: premises costs, the costs of applying for IP protection and design costs," said TIGA in a statement. TIGA also aims to increase the proposed rate of relief under the tax credit scheme from 175 percent of qualifying expenditure to "at least 200 percent." According to the group, for every pound spent on qualifying expenditure, it would get two pounds of deduction which it would use to reduce its corporation tax. It also proposes more relief for loss-making organizations. "The claims process should be simplified," TIGA adds, calling for a designated contact whom they can approach to discuss their eligibility for various initiatives. "Further, it would be helpful if the Government could speed up the delivery of the R&D tax relief, which is of course a retrospective form of assistance, and commit to a deadline for approval and settlement of each claim," the group concludes. "The UK video games industry is a high tech, highly skilled and export oriented industry that needs the right support from Government to continue to flourish," urged TIGA CEO Richard Wilson. "The R&D tax credits system should be reformed to promote additional investment in R&D particularly in small and medium sized enterprises. We call on the Government to support the UK video games industry by introducing TIGA’s proposals to improve the R&D tax credits in the forthcoming Budget." TIGA chairman and Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley said these new proposals "are estimated to deliver 60-75 percent more value to games studios than the current R&D tax credit regime." Adds Kingsley, "If the Coalition Government wants to support highly skilled, high-tech industries then it should look seriously at the proposals TIGA has set out and introduce these changes in the Budget on March 23rd."