David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, has managed to snub the games tax break once again but failing explicitly to answer a question put to him in Prime Minister’s Questions as to why his government had failed to implement the tax break (thanks to Develop for this one).
Dundee MP Jim McGovern (Labour) asked Cameron to explain why, in the emergency Budget last month, the Chancellor George Osborne had (infamously) described the games tax break as “poorly targeted”. Cameron sidestepped the issue altogether and talked about the reduction of corporation tax instead. He said:
“We believe that what matters is having low tax rates, and what we did in the Budget – which the House voted on last night – was to cut the small company rate of corporation tax back down to 20p from 22p and set out a path for getting corporation tax down to 24% by the end of this Parliament…That would give us one of the lowest tax rates in the G8, the G20 or anywhere in Europe. That is what we will benefit from, but I note that the Labour party voted against those tax reductions”.
That’s unfortunate. It doesn’t seem to bode particularly well for the games tax break (or the games industry for that matter) if Cameron couldn’t even be bothered to pay lip service to the UK games industry. What a wasted opportunity. Still, kudos to McGovern for raising the question.
Pish. What was he saying about an 'open, honest' government before the election?
What a load of crap
Fair, low taxes for ALL business' (remember we're all employees of one business or another) or something which only benefits a select few.
Congrats to Cam & Oz to sticking to their guns