While Canada keeps rolling along and introducing tax breaks designed to lure more developers to the Great White North, optimism for similar measures across the pond in the UK appears to be fading.
An article on GamesIndustry.biz notes that, in the UK’s gloomy economic environment, MP’s Ed Vaizey and Jeremy Hunt are “facing up to the realities of convincing the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government to help fund the videogame sector.” Hunt indicated in a recent speech that he would still “love” to introduce the tax breaks, but that he still needed to convince members of the government.
“Political insiders” also told the publication that announcing any tax breaks for developers at the current time would be “’impossible’, and tantamount to ‘political suicide’”.
Comments
Re: Dream of UK Tax Breaks May Be Evaporating
Strange, I thought the focus of the Conservatives/LibDem coalition was to try and promote growth and to cut public spending, not to try and kill off the few industries that we have left.
Personally, I would have thought the best way to stimulate growth in an economy is to do everything you can to attract and encourage home-grown talent, make the country productive again, you cannot use taxes to pay off everything if the amount being earned by the populace cannot match the payback requirements, so you need a good percentage of people working and earning and paying their taxes in order for this to work. If gaming companies, one of the fastest growing areas, overlook the UK, or decide to move to a more favourable climate, how is this helping any kind of recovery?
The trick is to make sure that the cuts add up to less than the total income tax that would be gained by those employed by the company, that way you make a net profit.