How can Film Tax relief help you?

According to HMRC some of the winning productions from the 2020 Academy Awards benefitted from Film Tax Relief. As noted in our previous blog the relief is one of the Government’s creative industries’ tax  relief, but what is Film Tax Relief, and  how does it help these movies to be made from low to multi-million pound budgets?

What is Film Tax Relief?

Film Tax Relief allows productions to claim back a portion of their expenditure assuming it meets certain criteria. The British Film Commission lists it as currently available for:

• All British qualifying films of any budget level, the Film Production Company (FPC) can claim a payable cash rebate of up to 25% on UK qualifying expenditure.
• The tax relief is capped at 80% of the core expenditure i.e. even if you have 100% UK-qualifying expenditure, tax relief is only payable on up to 80%.
• There is no limit on the budget of the film or the amount of relief payable within the 80% cap.

Following research conducted by the British Film Institute (“BFI”), for every £1 of tax relief given, ,£7 is generated for the British economy and ,since its inception in 2007, this relief has benefitted over 5,000 claimants.

To claim the relief, however, a film must be certified as British, but this is no reason for international productions to be deterred as we describe below.

Claiming the relief internationally

Using the British Cultural Test allows an international project to be considered for the relief: it can however be a complex task. Our experts in the film and entertainment team are well versed in helping clients to complete the test successfully as well as assisting in other accountancy services within the film and television industry.

For more information on Film Tax Relief (or any of the Government’s 8 creative tax reliefs) and how your production could benefit please contact me on the details listed above or by submitting an enquiry.