Creative and Audio-Visual Reliefs — Equality Impact Assessment
Published 1 April 2026
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Project objectives
Administrative changes are being made to all the creative industry tax reliefs. These changes will streamline the process of making a claim and reduce the administrative burden on HM Revenue and Customs, as well as making it easier to tackle abuse. Additional changes are being made to the reliefs to correct anomalies and prevent abuse.
The audio-visual creative tax reliefs are being reformed to expenditure credits from 1 January 2024. The Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) covers the Film Tax Relief (FTR), High End Television tax relief (HETV tax relief), Animation Tax Relief (ATR) and Children’s TV Tax relief (CTR). The Video Games Expenditure Credit (VGEC) covers the existing Video Games Tax Relief (VGTR). The administrative changes for the audiovisual reliefs came into force from 1 January 2024 to align with the commencement of the new expenditure credits. The existing Tax Reliefs will end on 1 April 2027.
The cultural reliefs include Theatre Tax Relief (TTR), Orchestra Tax Relief (OTR), and Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief (MGETR). For these reliefs, eligible expenditure also changed from European to UK to ensure the reliefs meet our international obligations. The changes to the cultural reliefs, including the administrative changes and mandatory use of the online information form, came into force from 1 April 2024.
Customer groups affected
The customer groups that will be directly impacted by the change are:
- employers
- payroll software developers
- employer paid agents
What customers will need to do
Customers can make a claim on their CT600 and CT600P and submit an online Creatives Form with their supporting evidence. Customers must submit all three for the claim to be valid. New productions must claim under the new model from April 2025. Productions already started by 1 April 2025 may continue to claim under the current model until 31 March 2027. The service can be accessed through the Government Gateway account and CT Third Party Software.
Assessing the impact
We assessed the impact on those in protected characteristic groups in line with the Equality Act and Public Sector Equality Duty; and Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act.
HMRC has constructively engaged external stakeholder/customer groups to better understand how this change may affect customers. There is no evidence to suggest there are any specific impacts on customers who share the following protected characteristics:
- racial groups
- sex
- gender reassignment
- sexual orientation
- age
- religion or belief
- pregnancy and maternity
- marriage and civil partnership
- people with dependents and those without
- political opinion (for Northern Ireland only)
- people who use different languages (Including Welsh Language and British Sign Language)
Equality impacts identified
Disabled and not disabled
Impact on customers
There may be customers who, due to their disability, require additional support in dealing with HMRC. There is no evidence to suggest any specific impacts on those customers within this protected characteristic group.
Proposed mitigation
Guidance published on GOV.UK complies with Government Digital Service (GDS) standards, accessibility standards and GOV.UK style guides.
HMRC provide an Extra Support Service for those customers who may need additional help.
Opportunities to promote Equalities
We have considered opportunities to promote equalities and good relations between people in each of the protected characteristic groups and those outside of that group, none have been identified. HMRC will continue to constructively engage with customers to explore opportunities in the future.
A full Equality Impact Assessment is only required if potential major direct impacts are identified through the External Customer Screening Equality Impact Assessment. This measure does not introduce any change to the current reporting process.
A full Equality Impact Assessment is not recommended.