Creative industry tax relief claims: Additional Information Form

From 1 April 2024 onward, in order for creative industry tax relief claims to be valid, the claimant company must submit an ‘Additional Information Form’, which will be submitted to HMRC digitally. The form should be submitted before, or at the same time as, the claim. This will apply to all creative industry tax relief claims including: the new Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) and Video Game Expenditure Credit (VGEC); the outgoing Film, Television, and Video Games tax reliefs; as well as theatre, orchestra and museum & gallery exhibition tax relief claims.

The additional information requirements appear to be quite substantial and will likely result in a greater level of supporting documentation and information to be submitted alongside creative industry tax relief claims.

The claimant company will be required to provide information for each production included in its claim and also provide a named senior officer of the company responsible for the claim. The requirement will apply to each claimant company, which could result in a large increase in supporting documentation where claims are made by multiple entities within a group.

For each separate production included in the claim, the claimant company will need to provide information on the production, total expenditure of the production and total core costs for the production, along with the amount of credit or relief being claimed for each production. As this is a requirement per production, claimant companies that have many separate productions in a period will see a large increase in the information they have to share.

As well as the above, HMRC are requiring further additional information where a claimant company has connected party transactions included in the production costs. Claimant companies will need to provide details for each connected party transaction across all of its productions. Given many claimant companies will have implemented a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) model for their creative industry tax relief claims this could result in a significant amount of information having to be provided. Where this connected party transaction information is not provided, the qualifying expenditure will be reduced by the amount of connected party expenditure.

Given the level of disclosure now required for connected party transactions, it will be even more important that claimant companies have sufficient evidence and documentation to support the amounts charged between connected parties.

For further information or to discuss what it may mean for your business specifically, please contact the authors or your usual KPMG in the UK contact.

For further information please contact:

• Peter Chapman
• Daniel O’Toole