Tax Credits
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Credits Where Credits Are Due
Tyler Perry believes that generative AI could soon drastically reduce location filmmaking. He recently announced plans to pause an $800 million expansion of his Atlanta-based studio complex, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “I no longer would have to travel to locations. If I wanted to be in the snow in Colorado, it’s text…. If I wanted to have two people in the living room in the mountains, I don’t have to build a set in the mountains.” But state legislatures and film offices haven’t gotten that memo. As we take our annual look at film tax incentives around the country, the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2024 -
Out of the Spotlight: A 2020 Update on Film Tax Incentives in the U.S.
It’s an election year, and film tax incentives are in the news. Among small government types, state government tax dollars in the form of tax credits and rebates for film and television production will always be controversial. A September 2019 report by Michael Thom, associate professor at the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy, adopted a “quasi-experimental” research approach to throw doubt on the role that incentives play in improving a state’s employment rate. The report, noted David Robb in Deadline, was “funded by the Koch Foundation, whose billionaire brothers—Charles and David Koch—virtually destroyed the Florida’s film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 17, 2020 -
Income Forecasting
“There’s a great infrastructure, and the credit is solid,” said Entertainment Partners (EP) executive vice president, John Hadity, in these pages one year ago about the New York State Film Production Tax Credit Program. Governor Andrew Cuomo had just extended its sunset date until 2022, with $420 million in annual funds appropriated. “That means television series that do their planning 18 to 24 months in advance have certainty that the program is going to be around for another few years,” he said. But just a year later, Hadity cites the New York program as one of his worries when surveying […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2019 -
The Irish Way
The way writer/director Michael Tully and producer George Rush tell it, Don’t Leave Home, Tully’s new feature, started with the idea of a place and a vibe. The vibe was sophisticated art house horror — something in the vein of Nicolas Roeg’s classic ghost story, Don’t Look Now — where things just feel off. And the place would be Ireland — specifically, Dublin and the spectacular mountains and eerie bogs of County Wicklow, about 40 miles south of the city. But, as Austin-based Tully — whose last feature was the Ocean City, Md.–set Ping Pong Summer — explains, there wasn’t […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 8, 2018 -
Paris By Night: Making a Nathan Silver American Independent Film in Paris
Foreign productions shooting in France have two options to obtain tax rebates. One is to officially become a French production, which requires a co-production treaty and going through the French Ministry of Culture’s CNC agency. For Nathan Silver’s Thirst Street, that wasn’t a practical option: the United States is one of the few countries to have no co-production treaty with France. (The United States has no coproduction treaties with any country, in fact, but that’s another story.) According to Thirst co-writer/producer C. Mason Wells, the production had to go the more common Tax Rebate for International Productions (TRIP) route. The […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 8, 2018 -
SARAH PALIN DEFENDS FILM TAX INCENTIVES
In my review of 2010 in film, appearing in the Winter issue of Filmmaker soon to depart newsstands, I predicted controversy in 2011 over state film tax credit and incentive programs. That controversy has today landed on an unlikely target: Sarah Palin. First, here’s what I wrote: In December, Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney made waves when she predicted a wave of municipal bond defaults, highlighting the perilous financial position of recession-strapped state and local governments. Indeed, independent filmmakers might find their beloved film incentive and rebate programs impacted in 2011. The seeds of this began in late 2010, with […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 30, 2011 -
WHAT’S IN MY INSTAPAPER: SUNDAY MORNING LINKS, 2/6/2011
Here’s what’s in my Instapaper this week. At Hammer to Nail, Mike Ryan returns from Park City and declares, “Indie is back!?!” Specifically, he sees the festival embracing a wider spectrum of the independent community and jettisoning its reflexive propensity towards cinematic naturalism: First off, what is great about Sundance 2011 is not only the selection of unusual, formally inventive films, but the near total absence of corporate engineered, market driven, faux indie high-budget QUIRK CRAP (although there were some more offbeat versions of the old style quirk like My Idiot Brother and Terri, there was not an Answer Man […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 6, 2011 -
NEW YORK FILM TAX CREDIT EXTENDED; POST CREDIT ADDED
It’s nice to end the week on some good news. From an email I received from the New York State Governor’s Office of Film and Television: New York State’s Film Production Tax Credit Program has been extended and expanded to provide multi-year support of $420 million per year. New York State also introduces its first free standing post production credit. New York State’s 2010-2011 Executive Budget includes a multi-year agreement to extend and expand New York State’s Film Production Tax Credit Program, sustaining the state’s 30 percent Film Production Credit program for another five years. In addition, a new incentive […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 6, 2010
