Spring Budget 2023: Film and HETV tax breaks protected

When Jeremy Hunt, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, revealed his Spring Budget in mid-March, there was some welcome news for the British film and TV industry.

The government is set to reform the Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit and have a new system modelled on the Research and Development Expenditure Credits process. Film and high-end TV (HETV) will now be eligible for a credit rate of 34%, while animation and children’s TV will be eligible for a rate of 39%.

Mr. Hunt added that the qualifying threshold for HETV shows would remain at £1m per broadcast hour, although ministers had looked at raising this threshold. The minimum episode length of a qualifying TV show has been reduced from 30 to 20 minutes.

The government will also introduce a Video Games Expenditure Credit with a headline rate of 34%, and both this and the Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit will have a 80% cap on qualifying expenditure.

“[…] Our creative industries [are] growing at twice the rate of the economy,” the Chancellor said in his Budget speech. “This government’s audio-visual tax reliefs have helped make our film and TV industry the biggest in Europe. Only last month, Pinewood announced an expansion which will bring another 8,000 jobs to the UK.”

The industry has generally reacted positively to the news. “[The] announcement is a real recognition from the Government of the growth and opportunity our UK film and high-end TV industry presents,” said Adrian Wootton OBE, CEO of the British Film Commission. “The UK’s tax reliefs have directly influenced many productions’ decisions to base themselves in the UK, contributing billions of pounds to the economy and hundreds of thousands of jobs across the UK’s nations and regions.”