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Grant Thornton offers solutions to the digital risk issues you are sure to face. Our skilled and experienced security team can helping by advising and consulting, giving you peace of mind, clear value for money and an enhanced ability to react to attacks.
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Motivating and assisting our clients to pursue, maintain and secure the benefits of digital solutions is at the core of our Digital Transformation teams' agenda and goals. We work with business leaders to deliver efficient digital strategies and operating models that provide new or enhanced capabilities.
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Economic Advisory
Our all-island Economics Advisory team combines expertise in economics and business with a wealth of experience across the public and private sectors.
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Forensic Accounting
We have a different way of doing business by delivering real insight through a combination of technical rigour, commercial experience and intuitive judgment. We take pride in delivering responsive and tailored solutions to all our clients, capitalising on the wealth of experience housed within our Belfast and wider Forensics team
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People and Change Consulting
The Grant Thornton People & Change Consulting practice works with clients on these issues as well as on all aspects of how they attract, retain, engage develop, deploy and lead their people.
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We work with a wide variety of clients and stakeholders such as high street banks, private equity funds, directors, government agencies and creditors to implement solutions which provide the best possible outcomes.
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Corporate and International Tax
Northern Ireland businesses face further challenges as they operate in the only part of the UK that has a land border with a country offering a lower tax rate.
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Our team specialises in remuneration and incentive planning and works closely with employers, shareholders and employees to ensure that business strategies are aligned and goals achieved in the most tax efficient, cost-effective manner.
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Our team of experienced advisors are on hand to guide you through any decision or transaction ranging from the establishment of new business ventures, to realising value on exit, to succession planning and providing for loved ones.
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Global Mobility Services
Grant Thornton offer a different approach to managing global mobility. We have brought together specialists from our tax, global payroll, people and change and financial accounting teams across Ireland and Northern Ireland, while drawing on the knowledge and insights of our global network of over 143 offices of mobility professionals to provide you with a holistic approach to managing global mobility.
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Our outsourced service provides valued service to over 150 separate PAYE schemes. These ranging from 1 to 1000 employees, working for micro, SME and global employers. The service is supported by the integrated network of tax and global mobility teams and the wider Grant Thornton network delivering a seamless service. Experienced staff deliver a personal service built around your business needs.
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VAT and Indirect Taxes
At Grant Thornton (NI) LLP, our team helps Northern Ireland businesses manage their UK and global indirect tax risks which, as transactional taxes, can quickly become big liabilities.
Just a decade ago, Northern Ireland’s film and media production sector had little international profile. Following a number of highly popular and successful films and television programmes in recent years, the Northern Ireland creative industries sector has taken off.
It is not just the country’s beautiful, rural landscape and the vibrant capital city which make it an attractive filming location for overseas producers. Media productions filmed in Northern Ireland which meet HM Revenue & Customs qualifying criteria can avail of the UK’s creative industry reliefs. This has seen highly acclaimed local television productions such as “The Fall” benefitting from such incentives.
It is not just local productions using Northern Ireland as a filming location, “Game of Thrones” arguably the most successful TV show of all time, has taken advantage of the UK tax incentives and various funding available from NI Screen.
The inception of the creative industry reliefs started with the UK film tax relief which was introduced in 2007 and has since provided over £2.7 billion of relief to 4,495 films and has been recognised as a great success by both the government and film industry. Since then, the UK government has extended the relief to seven other creative sectors: video games, high-end television productions, animated television productions, theatrical productions, orchestral concerts and museum or gallery exhibitions.
In figures published by HM Revenue and Customs, some £771 million in tax relief was paid to qualifying UK films (£469m), video games (£105m), high-end television (£184) and animated programmes (£13m) in the tax year 2017-18.
Creative industry tax reliefs are corporation tax reliefs which permit qualifying companies to make a claim for two types of incentive; either, an enhanced tax deduction at 100% of qualifying expenditure from taxable profits or, where sufficient losses are available, a tax credit cash repayment at 25% of qualifying expenditure with no reinvestment conditions attached to such a receipt.
In order to qualify, the productions must meet a ‘cultural test’ in which the production must be certified as a ‘British film’, ‘British programme’ or ‘British Video Game’. The cultural tests are all slightly different for each type of production and, as with Video Games Tax Relief, they include some elements that cover the European Economic Area rather than just the UK. For some reliefs, a minimum slot length must be met, along with a minimum expenditure requirement per hour of show time.
Media tax credits operate in the same way as R&D tax credits. Due to the highly beneficial incentives available and the similarity in calculating these reliefs, one company cannot make a claim for both. Some innovative companies who qualify for both reliefs may need to assess which incentive is most beneficial and pick between one or the other.
Overall, if you are a production company operating in the creative industry, you should carry out an investigation to determine if you qualify for the generous tax reliefs that may be available.