Saturday, September 10, 2011

California Film Tax Incentives -- Thumbs Up for One Year

The I.A.T.S.E. worked hard on getting the state tax incentive renewed for another five years, with a lot of union reps flying to Sacramento to tub-thump for it. But they ended up with only a slice of the layer cake:

... The California legislature extended the film production tax incentive program for one year early Saturday morning during the intense final minutes of the annual legislative session ... The bill had originally gone through the legislative process as a five year program, but two weeks ago was cut to one year as part of a budget compromise.

Then two days ago it was restored to five years as part of compromise tied to the tax plan pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown. That passed the state Assembly but stalled in the Senate, and died last night. So the tax incentives were cut back to one year and approved ...

The program has worked pretty well over its five-year span, but money is tight. So there will be, over the next several months, a lot more pushing and shoving to get an extension.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/technology/rich-tax-breaks-bolster-video-game-makers.html?_r=1&ref=technology

The United States government offers tax incentives to companies pursuing medical breakthroughs, urban redevelopment and alternatives to fossil fuels.
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It also provides tax breaks for a company whose hit video game this year was the gory Dead Space 2, which challenges players to advance through an apocalyptic battlefield by killing space zombies.

Those tax incentives — a collection of deductions, write-offs and credits mostly devised for other industries in other eras — now make video game production one of the most highly subsidized businesses in the United States, says Calvin H. Johnson, who has worked at the Treasury Department and is now a tax professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

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