Brussels, 16/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 16 April 2013, the European Commission opened an in-depth investigation into the proposed United Kingdom video games tax relief. The objective of the measure is to provide an incentive to video games developers to produce games meeting certain cultural criteria. The UK intends to introduce a 25% tax relief on a maximum of 80% of the production budget of a qualifying video game for expenditure on goods and services used or consumed in the UK. However, the Commission considers that there is no obvious market failure in this dynamic and growing sector and that such games are produced even without state aid. Moreover, the Commission feels that limiting expenditure for the tax relief to goods or services “used or consumed” in the UK might be discriminatory, and doubts that the proposed cultural test would ensure that the aid supports only games with cultural content without leading to undue distortions of competition. It also fears that offering this type of aid would fuel a subsidy race among member states. Interested parties have a month to respond. (FG/transl.fl)