Friday, May 03, 2013

British Austerity and Tax Breaks!

F*ck, YEAH!

... While TV and animation legislation is being implemented in the UK, the introduction of the games tax break was dealt a set-back two weeks ago when the European Commission said it would investigate whether developers in the UK really need one.

“There is no obvious market failure in this dynamic and growing sector,” said the EC at the time.

But Osborne brushed aside any concerns, calling the games element of the new subsidies package as simply an “unfinished story” that will go on to grow the overall creative sector’s £36bn value and vast 1.5m employment base. ...

Tax breaks form an important part of the current UK government’s overall economic policy.

While implementing a deep austerity strategy, the coalition is pursuing international investment as an answer to domestic debt problems, hence the allure in fighting to win back TV productions, animation deals and game studio jobs.

It's a fine, double-barreled approach to Britain's double dip recession. Subsidies for companies, benefit cuts for the poors. The U.K.'s GDP is growing, after all.

Britain’s economy avoided entering an unprecedented — and politically damaging — third recession in five years, according to official estimates released Thursday. ...

Although the economy has been broadly flat for the past 18 months, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, was able to argue on Thursday that there were reasons to be encouraged by the small uptick in the country’s gross domestic product.

The rise in G.D.P. was in comparison to the previous three-month period, when the economy contracted by the same amount, the Office for National Statistics said. Two consecutive quarters of contraction constitute a recession. ...

Make no mistake, the confidence fairies have returned and surging economic growth is finally on the way!

Subsidies forever!

1 comments:

Grant said...

This is why Disney is not using ILM in SF to do the effects for the new Star Wars films. They're setting up a studio in London to do a lot of the work, with spilover going to WETA in New Zealand. Thankfully, they're doing the design work in Los Angeles as well, as the last 3 star wars films were terribly designed.

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