fantasy
You might have heard over the past year how the film industry is hurting. Piracy and lower audience turnout cut into the bottom line. Not to mention that movies, in general, suck nowadays.
But those guys in Hollywood are creative and they know how to strike up a deal. An AP report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press tells of executives achieving tax credits and incentives in, of all places, Wisconsin. According to the SPPP article, companies that spend $10 million in Wisconsin to produce a film there will get $2.5 million back from the state.
That is hilarious in of itself, but then read what Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle said at the tax break announcement: "We all believe we have the perfect state in the world to make movies in, but this is a way to provide tax incentives to people to do it." Well, if you had the perfect state to make movies in, you wouldn't need the tax incentives, would you?
Further, tax incentives alone are not enough to attract guys like my boy, Jerry Bruckheimer (producer of Top Gun and Days of Thunder), to the land of cheese. You're also going to need things like adequate production facilities, a diverse landscape (often), and people to act in the movies. And unless you're making a movie like Fargo, making a movie where the majority of speech comes from people with upper-midwest accents may not be the best idea.
Sure, the movie producers will probably just use Wisconsin natives as sides anyways. But I seriously doubt that Wisconsin is going to become anything more than a mecca for Lifetime Original series productions.
posted by Brandon @ 9:51 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I suspect that one of the ongoing challenges that I will incur with this blog is trying to convince others that no matter if a certain tax incentive 'worked,' that does not necessarily mean it was the right thing to do.
For instance, in Louisiana, both of you claim that the incentives programs have 'worked'; a basic google search on the subject appears to support your claim.
But for me, when a tax incentive/break/whatever 'works,' that means only that is has achieved its objective. In Louisians, film production has increased.
Some will say that there were other programs that deserved the money that the film companies 'received' via the tax break. My problem is that the Louisiana government had to offer these incentives in the first place and other smaller businesses are not entitled to the same treatment; the two issues are part of the same problem.
Louisiana could have chosen to offer a low tax rate to all of its businesses, which in turn would have attracted investment and eventually out-of-state investors, including film producers, would have realized that LA is good place to invest in. Instead, Louisiana has a system that sets up negotiations between major industries and the government for the benefit of both, leaving smaller businesses hung out to dry.
Post a Comment
<< Home