Research and development claim or creative relief claim: is it time to switch?

As a UK company developing video games there’s an opportunity to claim tax credits for qualifying expenditure incurred under one of two tax credit regimes – the research and development (R&D) tax relief/credits regime and the video games tax relief/credits regime.

Little has been written about the comparison between these valuable reliefs however a choice exists for certain small and medium sized companies (SMEs) where the company must decide whether to claim under the R&D tax regime or the video games tax regime. A company cannot claim under two state aid schemes for the same project and therefore a choice between them is required. Care should then be taken to ensure that the company does not inadvertently claim under the incorrect scheme which then disqualifies it from being able to claim under a more beneficial scheme at a later stage.

While previously higher beneficial R&D...