The game franchises of “Grand Theft Auto” and “Red Dead Redemption” have grown to become massive successes as their publisher – Rockstar Games has raked in billions in profit out of these titles. However, a new report came to fruition accusing the gaming company of tax avoidance.

Tax Watch UK recently published a report about Rockstar Games stating that the publisher including the UK-based companies of Take Two Interactive did not pay any corporation tax in the United Kingdom in a span of 10 years (2009-2018). It also added that Rockstar North even claimed £42 million worth of subsidies coming from UK taxpayers over the last three years via credits under the Video Games Tax Relief.

Culturally British

For the uninitiated, the above-mentioned tax program was introduced by the UK government back in 2014 to give out what the report says a “targeted support” for video games that they think are “culturally British.”

Per Gamespot, this Video Game Tax Relief scheme is giving developers somewhat of leeway on their tax bill if they were able to reach a certain requisite (i.e. game was developed in the UK, locations, issues, themes, British protagonist/characters). Further, the ones calling the shots on whether the game meets the criteria or not is the British Film Institute to which they’ve deemed “GTA V” to be as such hence the tax relief.

The report concluded that the huge subsidy that was claimed by Rockstar North from the UK government clearly shows that their Video Game Tax Relief scheme “is not working as intended” and recommended that the government should be reviewing its efficacy.

It added that Take Two Interactive appears to believe that almost all of the profit should be going to their US-based counterparts while almost no profits are coming into the UK companies who took part in either developing or promoting the game. At the time of writing, Rockstar has yet to make an official statement about this.

'GTA VI?'

Meanwhile, the recruitment website known as Monster recently posted a job ad stating that Rockstar Leeds stating that the company is in need right now of Environment Artist.

Part of the work description reads that the person will be responsible for “creating and texturing environment assets for the biggest and best open-world environments in the industry.”

There was no mention of what game is in need of such position, but publications like Dexerto stated that the job listing could be hinting at “Grand Theft Auto VI” since the “GTA” series is without a doubt one of the best open-world titles.

Another thing that piqued the interest of fans is the part where it entices applicants to join them in creating “next-generation worlds.” The phrase may be pretty vague, but it could be suggesting the next generation of consoles (Microsoft’s Project Scarlett and Sony’s PlayStation 5).
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