# Digital Gaming Sector new tax credit



## Brendan Burgess (12 Oct 2021)

refundable CT tax credit 

Rate of 32% on expenditure up to €25m per project 

State Aid , so approval needed


----------



## Aladdin (12 Oct 2021)

A sector that is prob the very last to need state aid, kids are already addicted to this stuff! Surely literacy/reading needs more support.


----------



## Sunny (12 Oct 2021)

This is one I really don't get. I wasn't aware the digital gaming sector was on it's knees. When you have sectors like aviation/hospitality and the arts really struggling. So we are giving them state aid??


----------



## Leo (12 Oct 2021)

Sunny said:


> This is one I really don't get. I wasn't aware the digital gaming sector was on it's knees. When you have sectors like aviation/hospitality and the arts really struggling. So we are giving them state aid??


Lots of highly paid jobs going elsewhere. This is an incentive much like the R&D Tax Credits to reward bringing more of them here.


----------



## Paul O Mahoney (12 Oct 2021)

Leo said:


> Lots of highly paid jobs going elsewhere. This is an incentive much like the R&D Tax Credits to reward bringing more of them here.


But at what cost? The R&D incentive was about bringing new technologies into the economy in the of IT and biotech, gambling isn't in the same sphere... this is simply another way of mitigating the effect of 15% CT


----------



## Leo (13 Oct 2021)

Paul O Mahoney said:


> But at what cost? The R&D incentive was about bringing new technologies into the economy in the of IT and biotech, gambling isn't in the same sphere... this is simply another way of mitigating the effect of 15% CT


The company I work for utilise the R&D grants, the goal is purely about heads on the payroll. None of the IP of what we do under the scheme remains in Ireland.

Not sure why you mention gambling, that hardly factors in terms of the overall market. Worldwide gaming is a bigger business than movies and music combined and growing rapidly. A few of the biggest world players have operations here but we've fallen behind other locations in terms of growth. There's an opportunity to win more of these highly paid roles and really establish ourselves in the industry.


----------



## mathepac (13 Oct 2021)

The confusion arises from the gambling industry's PR machine.

"Gaming" in the context of this thread I interpret as building virtual worlds and building empires in competition with other players to establish a winner based on points, funny money, or other virtual rewards. Or fighting virtual wars or seeking virtual treasures in competition with other human players or the games' AI.

"Gaming" is the gambling industry's name for what they promote, where "players" can lose real money, real careers, real families, real homes  and even real lives through gambling addiction on football, horse racing, etc. Gambling on stocks and shares, currencies, and derivatives (junk bonds) is not referred to as gambling but investing.

"Gaming" can also refer to computer modelling of various scenarios to try to establish an optimum outcome by changing variables, parameters prior to attempting a strategy in the real world.

So the first, not the other two maybe, although the IT skills are transportable.


----------



## Leo (13 Oct 2021)

mathepac said:


> The confusion arises from the gambling industry's PR machine.


And a very effective machine they have. Their nod to problem gambling with the 'when the fun stops, stop' message just serves to sell gambling as fun. 



mathepac said:


> "Gaming" in the context of this thread I interpret as building virtual worlds and building empires in competition with other players to establish a winner based on points, funny money, or other virtual rewards. Or fighting virtual wars or seeking virtual treasures in competition with other human players or the games' AI.


Yes, gaming in this context is what many will call computer or video games.


----------

