Posted on 07/19/2016 5:13:37 AM PDT by MichCapCon
Last year Michigan lawmakers wisely did away with what was once the most generous film incentive program in the nation. Mackinac Center research showed that despite giving film producers half a billion dollars from 2007 to 2013, there were no signs that the film industry in Michigan was actually growing. Essentially, the program amounted to a taxpayer handout to a select few movie production studios. And now there’s new research that suggests these programs aren’t benefiting other states’ economies either.
The evidence comes from an article published in the American Review of Public Administration written by Michael Thom, a professor at the University of Southern California and graduate of Michigan State University. He analyzed 15 years’ worth of data from more than 40 states and found that film incentive programs, on the whole, have no significant impact on wages, employment, gross state product or film industry concentration in a state.
Thom also carefully analyzed the different types of film incentives offered by states, such as sales tax waivers, lodging tax waivers, transferrable tax credits and refundable tax credits, and tested each of these separately. In doing this, he found some positive effects for particular types of incentives, but the impacts were tiny. For instance, transferable tax credits had a small effect on film industry employment, but no effect on wages. And refundable tax credits had a positive effect on wages for film industry workers, but it was only temporary. Corroborating Mackinac Center research, there wasn’t any evidence that these types of incentives created new jobs.
Film incentives are a relatively new experiment among taxpayer-funded economic development programs. In 2003, there were only five states with such programs — now there are more than 40, and states are handing out close to $2 billion in subsidies to movie studios. Like Michigan, other states are beginning to wise up to the futility of film incentives, and this recent research should cause more states to rethink these programs.
I’ll bet these film studios are loaded with Democrat donors and make leftwing propaganda films.
Films and productions subsidized by NYS help the governor get his name out.
That's it! Film-making is high-profile -- the local TV stations love to cover it and always make a point of mentioning all the locals who got bit parts.
It's also -- much like pro-football -- supposed to raise a city's profile causing businesses to flock in.
But film-making, unlike, say manufacturing, doesn't spin off capital and is, therefore, economically almost worthless.
You would have a very hard time convincing Georgia of that... Dozens of companies are now building post-production studios in the state as more and more films are being made here. I had a chance to talk with a high level state employee (not elected but a finance guy) and they are thoroughly convinced that the tax credit program has impacted the state. I have a friend on the other side who monetizes the tax credits and his business is booming.
Even when “conservatives” use these programs they are fraud magnets. I can’t give details, but in a public story, there is a film in GA about the constitution starring one of Paula Deen’s boys and it sure looks like, from the public story that the producers are making the movie basically from the tax rebate by inflating the production cost.
I was gonna say!
Down here in Savannah, the TV and Movie industry is doing quite well.
Last spring, I got to watch THE Rock filming the Baywatch movie in my home Marina (we live on a sailboat there). It was fun watching the bad guys running out on a jet ski and the Rock being driven on a sidecar jet ski. :D
Adam Sandler filmed a movie down the street from us last year, but, I haven’t seen it come out yet.
Then there was the latest Spongebob Movie. Right in Downtown Savannah.
We have plenty of movies filmed here. Whether they are GOOD movies is another question.
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