On Tuesday May 28th at Uken Games, Minister Todd Smith from the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade (MEDJCT) officially announced the reduction of the labour threshold from $1M to $500K for annual filing to the OIDMTC. This change means smaller video game companies will receive their tax credits annually, and represents a major improvement over having to wait for each game to be completed before being able to apply to the OIDMTC. It’s also a simpler and faster application process. All in all, this change eliminates barriers to business, stimulates job creation and retention, attracts investments to Ontario and ensures the global competitiveness of the IDM industry.

Read the official announcement here.
Read IO’s post-budget press release here.

A personal note from our President and CEO, Lucie Lalumière:
IO wants to thank all IDM business leaders that we reached out to for coming out in droves (and thank you to those of you who tried hard to free up their schedule but couldn’t considering the short notice). Your attendance and engagement with the Minister and his MEDJCT team, as well as with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport (MTCS) and the Premier’s Office staff, was instrumental to the success of this event. You definitively made an impact by sharing stories about our exciting and growing industry. IO would also like to thank Chris Ye from Uken Games for agreeing on such short notice to host this cornerstone event at Uken’s impressive new office.

Interactive Ontario will continue to engage with the government on improvements to the OIDMTC. There will be a business process review of the cultural tax credits over the next few months. IO is keeping track of this initiative in order to make sure that our industry will have the opportunity to contribute input. Additionally, Marry Sorrenti, Chair of IO’s Advocacy committee, and Lucie Lalumière recently met with the OIDMTC team at Ontario Creates to discuss potential improvements. Ontario Creates continues to work hard at reducing the queue, with more resources allocated to processing OIDMTC applications.  They will also undertake the revision of the OIDMTC guidelines and Q&A over the next months. In that regard, IO will gather, share and discuss with them questions and desired points of clarification from the industry.