Grand Theft Auto maker has paid no UK corporation tax in 10 years | Hacker News Reader

Grand Theft Auto maker has paid no UK corporation tax in 10 years

theguardian.com

55 pointsNeedMoreTea13 comments

To qualify for the tax relief scheme, games under development must pass a cultural test administered by the British Film Institute that establishes a significant contribution to British culture. To qualify, games must score at least 16 out of a possible 31 points attributed for British settings, characters and development, and promoting cultural diversity. GTA V, a satirical game set in a fictionalised California, qualified in 2015

Seems like that is the root of the problem. How does a game set in California contribute to British culture?

Perhaps not in a good way:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/06/600217452...

"I am more worried about this spike because the profile of the people getting caught up in it is younger," he said. "The callousness of shooting into a crowd outside a cinema, shooting at young women, the normalization — never mind the ramping up by social media — all of that makes me alarmed and worried. I am pretty confident that we're not going to get over this problem unless there is a proper political consensus. This is not going to self-correct."

EDIT: formatting!

Violent video games have been around for a long time. If you are suggesting that they are causing an increase in violence, I would be very skeptical unless you provided an actual study that showed this, rather than one person's opinion. If anything they are an outlet for violent energy, in my opinion, rather than a catalyst for it.

I wasn't suggesting that. It's just surprising that 1) given the "senseless urban violence" content of the game and 2) a recent increase in violence in the UK that they'd even be considered for this exemption.

However, a character like Soap MacTavish and the references to the SAS in the CoD series would be a worthy contender!

Please read: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/04/the-el-p...

There’s a ton of references to Scotland in GTA.

https://www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/grand-theft-auto-s-sco...

(not sure if that’s what makes it qualify for the tax break but thought it relevant)

The actual test (I assume), for anyone else who was curious about this: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-...

Specifically:

- Up to 4 points for the amount of the "film" that takes place in the United Kingdom or another EEA state (or a fictionalized representation thereof)

- Up to 4 points for the number of characters originating from the United Kingdom or another EEA state, or from a colony thereof (whether a current colony, a current colony but before it was a colony, or a former colony if the film takes place while that colony was still a colony)

- Up to 4 points if it's either about a British/EEA-state subject or based on some underlying material of British/EEA origin (e.g. a film based on a book written by a British author)

- Up to 6 points for the amount of dialogue in the English language

- Up to 2 points each for any of the following things:

- - A creative interpretation of British culture

- - "Other factors relating to creativity"

- - Contribution to or reflection of British heritage

- - "Other factors relating to British heritage"

- - Promotion of cultural diversity

- - "Other cultural diversity factors"

- Up to 4 points for the amount of principal photography, special effects, or VFX work done in the UK

- 1 point if most of the music/audio recording was done in the UK

- 1 point each for any of these personnel who are from the UK or another EEA state:

- - Director

- - Scriptwriter

- - Producer

- - Composer

- - Up to one lead actor

- - Majority of cast

- - Up to one head of a "key staff" department

- - Majority of production crew

----

So if a game is entirely in English (6), created entirely in the UK (4 + 1 = 5), and created by / starring a majority-British cast and crew (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 8), then that's an automatic 19 points and thus qualifies for tax exemption. That doesn't seem too likely for a GTA game, but if Rockstar North was able to tick enough of the other boxes to make up for, say, a not-majority-British cast and no British lead actors, then it's unsurprising that it managed to skate into tax exemption.

Kinda makes me wonder if any British films / video games somehow managed to not meet these criteria. This seems surprisingly easy to accomplish.

That's a £40m distraction.

I think the real problem is the same as every other multinational tax fiddle. They were able to freely export work product that generated £6bn in global sales, £5bn should-be taxable profit to their offshore parent company. Even local sales didn't touch their books.

The British government created some tax credits and a company legally took advantage of them. It's a none story and just the Guardian baiting.

An actual interesting article would be on the tax credits themselves and if they were a good idea. It seemed to me, as someone who worked in the games industry, they were a good idea but came 5-10 years too late as by the time they were available the majority the UK's triple A game industry had collapsed and large amounts talent was brain drained off mostly to Canada but also Europe and America.

Maybe 30% of the people I started with no longer work in UK and haven't for years. And I was the same I've only recently come back (terrible timing on my part considering what's happening in the UK at the macro level but that's a different story!). In fact one of my coworkers who _did_ stay works at Rockstar North on the GTA titles.

Canada had a tax credit scheme for games companies that the UK was unable to react effectively to. Again an actual interesting article might ask if UK games companies collapsed due to inability to react to the market or because they moved, or couldn't compete internationally for talent due to other countries having better tax environments.

> Canada had a tax credit scheme for games companies

Sounds like the vfx industry.

I'm not sure if it is REALLY legal to have no income via shell companies. it's maybe a gray area, but the whole story has way more in it than just "legally applied to a tax credit, but morally not a good idea.".

Well I mean the government sets up government hand outs and then complains that people use them

I like the headline from Rock, Paper, Shotgun better; it's "Rockstar North operate within capitalism, says report". But they have free reign to be a lot more cynical than the Guardian.

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