The Enterprise: "Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz stop the traffic on the South Boston waterfront at the set of their latest action-comedy flick. Across town, Ben Affleck pulls double-duty by directing and acting in a bank heist movie.
A science-fiction thriller shot in the Boston area debuts as the nation’s No. 2 movie at the box office. And the developers of a film studio campus in Plymouth announce that they’ve lined up a $550 million construction loan for the massive project."
2 comments:
I feel like this article fairly assesses both sides of the argument for and against the capping of tax credits. The big fear is that cutting tax breaks would drive away the film industry business. I was at first shocked by the ratio of $166 million in tax credits to $302 million in income (resulting in a net of only $136 million, less than the total money credited to film crews) until I read on further to the more proper estimate of $670 million in new spending. It is difficult to assess a right decision in this case, since the films provide quite a profitable industry (as shown previously), but the economic climate has hit governments hard, and the removal or capping may be necessary to protect the government from further financial issues.
(Note: Posted during lunch break, Basic PTM is at 1:30pm today instead of the normal time.)
I like that this article presented more facts about the tax-credit situation for films. Some of the other articles presented don't mention anything along the lines of what the tax credits cost the states or bring in, but this one mentions the job increase for IATSE 481, and the estimated amount of spending in the state.
This article alone isn't enough to form a proper opinion on tax credits for films in general across all states, but when the state looks at the numbers carefully and sanely (like the way this article presents it), an informed decision can be made, and in this case, it appears as if it is profitable for MA to offer the tax credits, and should continue to do so.
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