"Producers and studios that work in the Bay State are eligible to receive a tax credit worth 25 percent of their production and payroll costs accrued while in the state. It also exempts most other purchases from the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax. In 2009, film productions were given $82 million in credits. Last month, the Associated Press reported that a quarter of all the expenses listed as eligible production costs went to millionaire movie stars who live out of state. The program has handed out $260 million since it was established in 2004."
This as social service budgets are being cut (pun intended).
"Hollywood or bust; Union heads try to get studio chiefs to keep working in Massachusetts" February 12, 2011|Noah Bierman, Globe Staff
Boston union chiefs traveled to Hollywood this week to deliver a message to film studio honchos: We’re good guys. Really.
Not long ago, local trade unionists who worked on television and movie sets had a reputation for adding unnecessary costs and workers to a job. According to one union leader, “a few greedy people’’ even peddled movie scripts and rental properties to out-of-town producers or demanded film roles from directors on the set.
“We’ve had a sordid past in the motion-picture industry,’’ said Sean M. O’Brien, president of the Teamsters Local 25.
With a handful of Oscar nominations for Boston-based movies, the state is trying to persuade Hollywood to keep filming here. That prompted the visit by the somewhat unlikely delegation Tuesday and Wednesday....
I'll give you one gue$$ a$ to how they are trying to per$uade them, taxpayer$.
They drove through Southern California, racing for 48 hours to meet with executives from 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Walt Disney, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, and a top talent broker, Creative Artist Agency.
At each stop , the delegation delivered two central messages. First, the state will keep its generous tax credit for the entertainment industry....
Did they really need that loot?
Related: MSM Monitor Movie Matinee
Also see: The Massachusetts Oscars
But Hollywood helps Mass. workers, right?
“The labor problems in Massachusetts stopped Massachusetts from having productions for quite a while,’’ said the executive, who requested anonymity because he did not want to risk alienating Massachusetts officials who reward studios with tax credits.
The studio executive said the two union leaders brought up the issue, unprompted, explaining that the attitude in organized labor has changed.
“To have the guy in the room that’s in charge of it say that to your face, that’s a good thing,’’ the executive said.
Massachusetts is one of about 40 states that offer an entertainment industry subsidy. Producers and studios that work in the Bay State are eligible to receive a tax credit worth 25 percent of their production and payroll costs accrued while in the state. It also exempts most other purchases from the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax.
In 2009, film productions were given $82 million in credits. Last month, the Associated Press reported that a quarter of all the expenses listed as eligible production costs went to millionaire movie stars who live out of state. The program has handed out $260 million since it was established in 2004.
Defenders of the program say it has spawned an industry that would otherwise not exist here and promotes the state to an international audience. A state report says it generated 1,683 jobs and $36 million in state revenue over the past four years.
That would be fine by me, and I am SO SICK of SELF-SERVING STATE "REPORTS!"
The Hollywood trip cost taxpayers an estimated $3,600....
Un-flipping-real!!!!
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I don't go to the movie houses anymore. Just not interested in the crap Hollywood is shoveling forth for the American public these days.
