U.S. Incentive News Round-Up

The latest in film incentive news among the states...

• An editorial in the Hartford Courant calls for Connecticut lawmakers to pass tax incentives for film so that the state can compete with neighbors Massachussetts and Rhode Island, both of which are flush with new film incentives. Connecticut's Commission on Culture and Tourism estimates the economic impact of a film to be $300K per day, and if hiring state residents were required for incentives eligibility, the impact would be even greater. "Mystic Pizza," which starred a young Julia Roberts in 1988, shot in the Mystic/Stonington area and is still paying dividends for tourism.
  >> Lights, Camera, Tax Credits! [Hartford Courant, 12/3/05]
• A Missouri panel assembled by Gov. Matt Blunt to review tax incentives has recommended nixing the state's current film incentive program, saying that the trade-off isn't worth it. MO granted $322,079 in tax credits in fiscal 2005, down from $423,900 in 2004 for 3 films that generated a total of $2.1M in expenditures. The panel acknowledged that films to generate substantive public interest and notoriety, but offer a very short-term benefit. But not everyone agrees with the panel's findings, saying it did not count film crews' secondary spending at stores, restaurants, gas stations and hotels. One pro-incentive MO legislator did his own study on the 2003 filming of "The Game of Their Lives," estimating that the production spent $12 million in St. Louis and got back $500K in tax credits.
  >> Tax incentives for film crews on the chopping block [AP/Wichita Eagle, 12/3/05]
• Arizona is gearing up for a flood of films to hit the state starting in January 2006. That's when a new set of incentives takes effect. The state will offer a transferable income tax credit for AZ expenditures--10% for films with budgets between $250K and $1M, 15% for $1-3M films, and 20% for films over $3M, with a credit cap of $5M per production. At least 25% of a production's hires must be AZ residents, with that number jumping to 50% in 2008. Productions are also exempt from sales and use taxes. A recent study estimated that the AZ film industry had total wages of $22M in 2003, generated $107M in direct AZ expenditures, employed 612 people, and produced an additional 1,092 indirect or induced jobs in the state.
  >> Lights, camera, Arizona [East Valley Tribune, 12/4/05]

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