TIGA delivers petition for tax relief to UK government

by Alexander Sliwinski on Dec 8th 2009 1:00AM

UK video game industry trade association TIGA delivered a petition today to 10 Downing Street (that's where Her Majesty ... oh, it's just the British Prime Minister's residence), seeking the introduction of Games Tax Relief. The petition was signed by 55 "senior industry figures," which gives the proposition a bit more weight than the standard internet plea. The argument set forth by Richard Wilson, CEO of TIGA, is that "if it is right to provide tax relief for the UK film industry then it is also right to provide tax relief for the UK video games sector."

TIGA's push on the UK government is being framed as a matter of survival for the British games industry. The organization previously stated that 1,700 jobs will be lost without tax breaks and that the current government funding structure for the games industry is "incoherent." If TIGA doesn't receive assistance soon, the group can always accept the outstretched hand of assistance from the ominous-sounding "Shadow Cabinet."

Source

Tags: britain, politics, tax, tax-relief, tiga, uk

Reader Comments (31)

One more reason Capitalism is a failed philosophy.

It is? Really?

Considering how long the damn system has worked...I suggest you do some more research.

Oh really? Poverty? Greed? Rich get richer, poor get poorer? Football players getting paid more than nobel winning scientists? Valuing the $$$$ over family, values, morals, and ethics? The ever expanding gap between "classes"?

You call that working? Leme guess, you're nice and rich due to your unethical values and amoral habits?

Hey, people should get paid at what the market values them at. A football player (I'm assuming we're talking American football, right?) is judged by the market to be worth more than a scientist.

You wanna know how this applies to gaming? Thanks to capitalism, you have THREE choices for your gaming consoles (I'm aware I've left the PC out...), with some absolutely stellar games. If we were communist, assuming there was gaming at all, there would be one poorly designed console, with mediocre games. Same case probably would apply to socialism.

Why? Because there's NO incentive to work better in a socialist/communist society. In the capitalist world, the people who do good, valuable work are generally rewarded.

"Why? Because there's NO incentive to work better in a socialist/communist society."

You equate paycheck with incentive. Maybe to people like you, where money is the only thing you value, thats true. But guess what! There are many people out there, most of them the intelligent people, who value a little thing called "morals" over money. People like you would quickly dwindle into the majority as you killed yourselves off.

You also make the false assumption that "communist products"="mediocre". Odd that you would spout that, and yet offer no support other than the value of your credibility, which on the internet is null.

Oh wait, that's not odd, since you probably have the critical thinking skills of a monkey.

On the average, communist products are mediocre.

I can tell you've been harness by the UberLiberal (tm) establishment in our universities today.

Just a small note...this website wouldn't be here if it wasn't for this 'capitalism' you hate so much.

Who is the intelligent one? The one who spends his days bitching about how the system is 'unfair'? Or the one who works it to his advantage?

Yes, us capitalist swines sell our souls for money, how dare we! We should go communist, worked real well for the Soviets.

Of course capitalism is flawed, but I'd like to see you come up with a better system that actually works when put into practice and isn't just a pipe dream that ignores parts of basic human behavior that would undermine it.

Capitolism works when the principals are followed, and corruption isn't allowed to fester, as it does now, with our government in bed with big corporations. We've left our principals by the wayside, hence the troubles we have today. Socialism has failed time and again, the principals of socialism, and the beliefs of history's biggest proponents of of it, are the stuff of nightmares. Also, I prefer my freedom, in socialism you are controlled and told how to live your life and how to spend your money, you have no freedom. Trust me we've got plenty of socialists in our government already, works good doesn't it? The more power a government gets, the more it takes, you cannot trust the government to run your life. You are saying you are ready to be sheep and be led by the nose. I already know I'm not taking you off your point, just figured people should hear the other side.

Wrong! Both of them are flawed because they require one thing, people.

People are greedy, and greed corrupts everything.

Guess what guys.

I'm going to be "That Guy" and tell you that you shouldn't discuss anything that's not gaming-related on a gaming blog. We already have enough stupid discussions about games.

Darth. Please don't go political here. If you've ever been inside a University I will eat my own left arm.

Hell. If you're even old enough to get into a bar I'll eat it.

Universities are not economically 'Uberliberal'; they teach straight-up neo-classicalism as their Long-run economic equilibrium, and you'd know that if you actually had an education in one. But the capitalism/communism debate is much more complex than just focusing on the long-run. Many factors can disrupt the economy from ever reaching the LR equilibrium, like demand/supply shocks, inflation, frictional unemployment, and the fact that the neo-classical model makes the terrifying assumption that consumers are well-informed and rational.

To make a long post short, please shut up. The ignorance in this debate makes me want to cry and the outcome will not matter anyway.

Of course, you agreed with Erik Estavillo in a previous post.

How does it go?

Son, I am disappoint.

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument toward the person" or "argument against the person") is an argument which links the validity of a premise to an irrelevant characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise.

Damn it, reply fucking fail!

Yes, excuse me for not addressing your Glenn Beckian level of statement. When you offer something at an Orwellian level I'll give my rebuttal.

Is it so 'ad hominem' as you claim? You were expressing support of a boy who's sole goal is to cheat companies out of their money. This doesn't seem like a decision from someone who claims to have 'morals'.

But I forget, it's okay to 'stick it to the man'.

Candlejack, Orwell was very much against communism, do you not see the irony in your statement?

Wow, you lot are full of shit...

Didn't EA just get done telling us how the UK was cheap to develop in?

All these companies are just cruising for tax breaks. Talk smack about where you are located and threaten to pull up stakes, get a big break. But it doesn't really mean a thing other than companies will do anything they can to save money.

I don't mind provided we get fairer prices for games as a result.

I dunno. To me it's kinda uncool. Big companies get tax breaks while small game companies have to carry their own weight? It works against the small guy.

*Political Comment Incoming*

Hah Alistair Darling lower taxes you have more chance of gravity suddenly reversing. Unfortunately our government is too busy taxing bankers to worry about anyone/thing else.

you're kidding right? if they would actually tax bankers or otherwise deal with their excessive pay/bonuses (and had done so before - and closed tax avoidance loopholes too) maybe we wouldn't be in the current mess.

what you mean to say is, they're too busy farting around *pretending* to tax bankers so that they can get some good PR out of it, while in fact they will avoid anything that might actually damage bankers because the government is terrified that the people who f***ed up the economy last time might run crying somewhere else.

luckily the fact that the government (any government) has a bank balance of approximately negative assloads means that stupid begging-bowl tactics from the game industry are rather unlikely to work right now, too...

Britain turned into a communist/socialist society long ago (and is well on the way to totalitarian) without anyone really noticing. They tax those who try and do an honest day's work and give it to the lazy scroungers who have never done anything for anyone, ever, and they somehow have more money than the decent people who try to earn a living honestly. That's not to mention all the moron MPs who use our taxes to have their moats cleaned and what not. I'm going to stop here because I could go on forever.

It's an exaggeration, but it's true, I hate the people who blame their financial problems on the government, yet live in council housing with a wealth of benefits. I don't think we are anywhere near communism though.

It might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the totalitarian bit isn't. Our Prime Minister was not elected by the people, we had no say on Europe, and there are more CCTV cameras in the UK per person than anywhere else in the world, and cops using anti-terror laws against people who drop litter, and the re-branding of legitimate protesters as "Domestic Extremists"... Like I said, I could go on forever.

On the whole thing about the Prime Minister being "unelected" no Prime Minister in British history has been directly elected. In a General Election you vote for your own MP then the party with the most seats forms the Government and by convention the party's leader becomes Prime Minister, Brown become PM after Blair stood down wasn't anything unusual.

That's why I'm voting Conservative next election. We badly need a change of regime, even if that means having to vote for David Cameron.

No party will make anyone 100% happy, its just voting for the lesser of 2 evils. Who was it who thinks it would be a good idea to make the unemployed work for their benefits? Pretty grim considerings where i live there's little work for someone like me.

To be honest I think no matter who we vote we are in for some serious trouble, personally I would probably vote lib dem, their policies seem pretty level headed and fair, but they won't win. As long as BNP don't win (which they wont) I'm happy.

Hot pockets. 'nuff said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlN_ltZ3Ug

TIGA delivers petition for tax relief to UK government

Reader Comments (31)

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