back to article Chancellor cans planned game biz tax break

Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has scrapped a Labour plan to provide tax relief for the videogames industry. The subject of much lobbying by the games development business, the tax relief programme was announced by the previous Chancellor, Alistair Darling, during his March 2010 budget. "I will offer …

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  1. Tel
    Alert

    VAT won't hurt much

    I seriously doubt the VAT rise will do much, if anything, to sales of games. It'll add exactly 85p to a £39.99 game. Not exactly bank breaking. I'm sure most gamers have enough readies to cover that. And the money to fill in Labour's gargantuan black hole has to come from somewhere...

    1. Wild Bill

      Nope

      I think you misunderstand what is meant by tax breaks for industries. VAT's nothing to do with it

    2. DPWDC

      Agreed

      Not sure why people are kicking up a fuss about the 2.5% VAT, its not like the drop to 15% made any difference - in real terms, things will stay as they are - games will still be £39.99 so as not to break the "£40?! FOR A GAME!?!" mark.

      High markup items will see no difference at all, and I can't think of any low markup items off the top of my head that cost more than £10.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    fair enough really

    I'm not against game developers getting a tax break, but i am a developer of non-game systems and over the years i feel like i have has one tax kick after another.... so us regular developers dont get a break and nor do the game devs... fair is fair.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Keep on losing

      In terms of general software development we got lapped by the rest of the world years ago. UK.plc may through up new starts and new tech companies, but the majority of the UK market is dominated by non-UK companies.

      Games development is a different story, were British development house can regularly cock-a-snoot at any and all international comers both in terms of the success and the quality of games produced. Only banks and bullets matter in the country.

      UK.plc - exporting debt and death since 1945.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sir Humphrey

    Sir Humphrey Applebe and George Osborne don't understand videogames. Leave that to the colonies in Canada.... the top priority is to top up the FCO's wine cellar before the VAT increase...

  4. irish donkey
    Thumb Down

    With all the revenue which will be generated by the reduction in Piracy thanks to the DEB

    I doubt they will need it.

    Of course if they move all their jobs overseas where it will be cheaper then millions of jobs will be lost via the developers need to maximise their profit rather than the downloader's desire for free stuff..

    So I guess it would make the whole case for the DEB rather redundant. Protecting jobs in cheaper countries doesn't have the same ring to it.

    The worst thing hurting the Games industry today is the digital handcuffs they insist on installing with all their games. Especially when the games won't run because of them. UBIsoft I'm looking at you here

  5. YumDogfood

    Bargain!

    "graduate level jobs" == cheap canon fodder. Burn em' out then get a new batch in before the current lot ask for a pay rise.

  6. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    @Sir Humphrey

    EA laid off 1000s of people here in Canada AFTER they got their tax break and a fast track worker visa scheme - seems they could make more money selling their building now that they didn't have to pay tax than they could making video games.

    The movie business here is now making the same claims - take all the money everyone in Canada spends on cable/DVDs/movie tickets and claim that this is all due to tax breaks for Hollywood shooting in Vancouver.

  7. The Nameless Mist
    Flame

    And 20 per cent VAT hike won't help sales, either

    VAT is not being increased by 20%.

    This would put VAT (UK Sales Tax) at 37.5% !!

    VAT is going up from 17.5% to 20% (2.5%).

    The author should take better care in their sub-titles.

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