Christophe De bont 
19/06/2019That’s a question you might have asked yourself a couple of times over the last few months. A few minutes ago during Game Pitch Cafe in Kortrijk our own David Verbruggen shed some more light on the current state of affairs of the tax shelter for the video games industry. He also announced a Flanders DC game lab on the subject that will be held this fall.
Back in February we explained there were still some hurdles to take before the law would come into effect. Meanwhile, the bill has been voted and published. If you can stomach some judicial Dutch, you can read the full text here (link in Dutch and French).
Things have been moving along smoothly (law making is the leanest of processes) so far, but the tax shelter isn’t here yet. We’re still awaiting approval from Europe, after which all three regions have to do the same. We’re hopeful Europe will give the green light after the summer, but the regional matter might be a little more complicated.
The results of the recent elections haven’t made the formation of new governments very straightforward, and we need both the regional and federal ones installed to get the required regional green light. If there’s no new federal government by October/November, it’ll be highly unlikely the tax shelter for the video games industry will kick off on January 1st 2020. However, there’s no reason to panic. Our political landscape might have been reshaped a little, but to our knowledge all political families are still in favour.
This fall the fine folks at Flanders DC will be teaming up with us, VAF/GAME, screen.brussels, WALGA and BelgianGames to organise a game lab on the tax shelter, bringing together game developers and investors. The event is still in the works, but you can sign up now to get notified when we’ve ironed out all the details.
That’s it for now. We’re confident that the tax shelter is finally coming, but it looks like it’s going to take a little while longer.
