North Carolina, Utah and Virginia recently increased their incentives. Legislators in Arkansas, whose program was scheduled to expire last June, decided to extend it for 10 years. However, other states are not giving up on their Hollywood dreams just yet. Even Louisiana, which in 1992 became the first state to offer film subsidies, put a $150 million cap on incentives per production beginning in 2018, citing budget pressures. The organization also noted that the study was funded in part by the conservative Koch Foundation, which the MPA says is biased against film production incentives.īut long before the USC study, many states were already relying on their own analyses and deciding to end the credits or scale them back. In a statement, the film industry's trade group, the Motion Picture Association, called the study "fundamentally flawed" and said Thom failed to consider the positive effects of incentives such as maintaining the current level of employment in a state, and diversifying state economies. The study's author, USC public policy professor Michael Thom, said the findings "should lead policymakers to question the wisdom of targeted incentives conferred on creative industries." It found that despite nearly $10 billion in spending since 2002, the incentives have for the most part had "no statistically significant effects" on employment. That helps explain why politicians and policymakers are rethinking the subsidies.Ī study published by the University of Southern California in September analyzed the five largest state motion picture incentive programs - in New York, Louisiana, Georgia, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Plot twistĮven legitimate productions carry risks for the states and municipalities that host them - namely that the economic benefit will not be worth the cost to the taxpayers. State subsidy programs typically require an audit of the production's expenses before any taxpayer money is spent. Production companies love the cost savings, and states and municipalities love the high-profile economic boost. The subsidies take multiple forms, but typically include tax credits, cash rebates on qualifying production expenses, or a combination of both. (One of those studios, Universal Pictures, is a unit of Comcast subsidiary NBCUniversal, which also owns CNBC.) And the studios spend millions of dollars on every production, creating a potential windfall for the local economy. Productions offer locals the prospect of rubbing elbows with stars. Of course, this is not just any industry. "Sometimes these credits work for a while, then they don't work and then they're withdrawn and then they're reinstated," author and industry researcher Robert Marich said in an interview with CNBC's "American Greed." "It also depends on the stomach of the voters to essentially subsidize an industry and lower taxes for a certain select industry, which means essentially raising taxes for everyone else." That is down from 44 states in 2009, as states deal with budget pressures and officials view less-than-stellar reviews on the programs' effectiveness. Virgin Islands offered some form of film or television production incentives. The league said that as of last year, 31 states along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |