Creative Industry Tax Relief (CITR)

Andrew Blake, Senior Accountant from Plus Accounting explains to us what CITR is and whether you qualify.

Creative industries in the UK are now worth over £70 billion to the UK economy according to official statistics and are one of the fastest growing industry sectors in the country.

What is creative industry tax relief?

CITR is a corporate tax relief put in place to encourage investment in the creative industries by providing enhanced tax relief on expenditure in the production of ‘British’ films, games and programmes. It is only available to companies which are liable to corporation tax and are directly involved in the production and development of certain films, high-end television programmes, animation programmes and video games. CITR is broken down into four separate reliefs:-

• Film Tax Relief
• Animation Tax Relief
• High-end Television Tax Relief
• Video Games Development Tax Relief (Subject to State Aid approval)

The ‘cultural test’

In order to qualify for CITR a film, television programme, animation or video game must satisfy a number of criteria including passing a ‘cultural test’ which certifies that the production is ‘British’. Formal certification is administered by the British Film Institute on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Tax Relief

If a production qualifies for one of the four available schemes you may be able to claim additional tax relief on qualifying expenditure (the expenditure on goods and services which are used or consumed in the UK) of up to 100%. If a loss is made it is possible to surrender this loss in exchange for a payable tax credit of either 20% or 25%.

If you would like to know more about creative industries tax relief please contact us at Plus Accounting.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk