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Conservatives scrap video games tax breaks
Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne revealed yesterday that the Coalition Government will not be implementing a tax break for video games.
In the emergency budget Osborne said that the Coalition Government has no plans to introduce tax breaks for the video games industry. He described the proposals for the scheme, which was announced by Alistair Darling in the Labour government's budget in March, as “poorly targeted".
This comes as a blow to the many video games developers in the UK and in particular to Tiga the video games trade association which has campaigned for video games tax breaks for over two years.
CEO of Tiga, Dr Richard Wilson said: “It’s a betrayal of the pre-election promises made by the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats – both parties pledged to introduce games tax relief before the general election. So we’re surprised and disappointment that they haven’t stuck to their promises.
“The video games industry is high technology, high skilled, export orientated, it’s low carbon output, it’s just the kind of industry of the future that the government should be supporting and it’s inexplicable that they have decided not to.
“There is still a tax break for the film industry in the UK and the oil industry in the North Sea. If you can have tax breaks in those sectors why can you not have a tax break for the video game industry?”