Tax games a PR issue
The call by the UK's video games sector for tax relief is special pleading, argues Dougal Paver, and should be ignored.
The UK's tax code is thicker than Hungary's and Egypt's and such complexity is one of a number of reasons why the country has slipped down the world competitiveness league these last ten years.
So the call by the UK's video games trade bodies for tax breaks for developers is at best likely to be described as unhelpful in this context. At worse, it would be described as arbitrary, unfair and illogical.
They're not fighting a fiscal battle, of course, they're in the midst of a PR offensive. And it doesn't work because they haven't answered the most fundamental of questions. Like, for example, how they can justify special treatment over other creative sectors whose salaries, risk-taking, working practices and even export achievements are as good as, if not better than, theirs.
Why should my shareholders be left with less cash in the kitty to subsidise other creative businesses? And why should any of my clients in unrelated sectors, taking just as much risk and investing just as much, if not more, in training, innovation and development, similarly subsidise them?
We need a clear, simple and fair tax system that rewards enterprise, risk and initiative and doesn't pander to the special pleading of minority interest groups. That will be far better for UK plc than an overly-wieldy tax code that penalises the majority at the expense of the few.
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