Introduction

Welcome to HM Revenue and Customs’ film page, which provides the latest information on the new tax relief for British film production and on the taxation of the film industry more generally.

Legislation reforming the taxation of the film industry, and introducing a new tax relief for the production of British films, is in Chapter 3 of the Finance Act 2006 which received Royal assent on 19 July 2006.

The film tax relief has now been approved as a State aid by the European Commission, subject to changes to the definition of what is a British film. Once these changes have been made, the new relief will be put into effect.

See here for details of which films will qualify for the relief, and of revised transitional arrangements.

See here for details of the revised definition of a British film.

What's New

04 October 2006

We have today published two further Chapters of draft guidance dealing with claiming film tax credit (PDF 71K) and loss relief and claiming losses (PDF 233K).

Comments are welcomed on these drafts, and should be sent to Email: Hasmukh Haria.

15 September 2006

The Q and A has been superseded by more complete draft guidance and has therefore been removed. Any queries should be directed to the address below:

23 August 2006

We have today published:

• an amended version of Chapter 1 of the draft guidance, dealing in more detail with where goods and services are “used or consumed” (PDF 113K)
• a new draft Chapter dealing with the basic rules for the taxation of film production companies (PDF 118K).
• draft regulations (PDF 80K) and a commentary (PDF 39K) setting a framework, based on that in Schedule 18 of FA 1998, for the operation of terminal loss relief under section 45 of FA 2006.

Comments are welcomed on these drafts, and should be sent to Email: Hasmukh Haria.

04 August 2006

We have today published further chapters of draft guidance on the new film tax relief, covering

• the way the relief itself operates (PDF 58K)
• the treatment of co-productions (PDF 39K), and
• commencement of, and transitional arrangements for, the new rules in Chapter 3 (PDF 76K).

Comments are welcomed on these drafts, and should be sent to Email: Hasmukh Haria.

24 July 2006

Paragraph 1.58 of Chapter 1 of the draft guidance has been temporarily removed because comments suggested that it does not accurately reflect the legislation at section 35 in all situations. We are considering this and will publish amended text in due course.

20 July 2006

We have today published guidelines setting out the way in which we intend to deal with and take account of comments made on the draft guidance.

13 July 2006

Draft Guidance on the new Film Tax Relief

We will produce formal guidance on the new tax relief later this year. In the meantime, we will be exposing draft guidance for comment on this site as it is developed and we would welcome any comments you might have.

The draft guidance published so far covers the following areas:

• an overview of how the film relief is intended to operate in practice;
• an explanation of the main stages of film production; and
• the definition of some basic terms which underlie the relief, including ‘film production company’, ‘production expenditure’, ‘core expenditure’ and ‘UK expenditure’.

30 May 2006

Publication of The Corporation Tax (Taxation of Films Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2006

Clause 52 of the Finance (No.2) Bill provides for regulations to ensure films which started principal photography before 1 April 2006 but are not completed before 1 January 2007 may be eligible for the new film tax relief.

These regulations (PDF 33K) were published in draft today, together with further details (PDF 19K) on the films affected and a commentary (PDF 46K) on the regulations themselves.

We welcome comments on the draft regulations which should be sent to the address below by 1 September 2006.

Business Income Manual – Updated Guidance

Revised guidance on the film tax relief which was available until 31 March 2006 is available in the Business Income Manual.

Contact details

If you have any queries regarding film tax relief, pleasecontact:
Hasmukh Haria
HM Revenue and Customs
Room 3C-15
100 Parliament Street
LONDON
SW1A 2BQ
Email: Hasmukh Haria