Legal Niches

Philly Preparing a Little Brotherly Love for Developers

By pete_gallagher

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (pictured) has proposed new tax policies designed to make city more attractive to tech firms, including videogame developers.

Nutter unveiled the plan last week in a speech to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, reports Philly.com. The Mayor suggested that tech firms pay taxes only on goods and services sold within the city, which would provide some respite from the current system, in which 'a company with headquarters and employees in the city pays more taxes than a company in the suburbs with the same sales figures in the city.'

The altered tax structure does not require City Council approval and will reportedly be introduced in the spring.

Game developer Mike Worth, of Space Whale Studios, located just outside of Philadelphia in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, told Metro International that the current state of tax affairs in Philly is what caused him to locate his company in the suburbs.  Worth, who is also an organizer for the Videogame Growth Initiative, a grass roots organization that has been lobbying for tax breaks in the city, estimates that the city has been losing 40 game graduates a year to other more attractive locales.

Worth is also a candidate for the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) board of directors.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on February 24, 2010 (boomark / email).