Britain is set to attract the production of more films like The Theory of Everything, Gravity and Avengers: Age of Ultron after the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne announced a new higher rate of film tax relief has been given the go ahead.
Under the new plans the £1.4 billion film industry will receive a tax credit of 25% on all qualifying expenditure bringing it in-line with TV tax relief. This means a British film costing £40 million will receive an additional £1 million towards productions costs from the change.
The Chancellor announced the scheme, which will be backdated to apply from April 2015, whilst visiting the set of Agatha Raisin, a new British TV series being filmed in Wiltshire that is benefiting from the government’s high-end TV tax relief. Under the scheme the government provides a tax credit of 25% on qualifying British TV productions.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said:
“British made films are watched and celebrated all over the world - last year alone we saw eight British made films nominated for an Oscar.
A key part of our long term economic plan is supporting our creative industries that contribute billions to the economy and provide millions of jobs.
We want to see more films, like Gravity and Avengers: Age of Ultron, made in Britain and that’s why we’ve made our film tax relief even more generous.”
The government’s film tax relief has supported almost £8 billion of production expenditure since its introduction, including films such as Oscar winning Gravity, Maleficent and Harry Potter. It supported 222 films in 2014 alone. In the March 2015 Budget, the government announced that it would further support the film industry by increasing the rate of film tax relief to 25% for all qualifying productions. Previously, the rate was 25% for the first £20 million of qualifying expenditure and 20% for spending above this threshold. The scheme has just been given State Aid approval by the EU which means it can now go ahead as planned.
