This week, I presented Senate Bill 366 to the Economic Development Committee. The “Show Missouri Film and Digital Media Act” reauthorizes an expired tax credit that encourages the production of motion pictures and television programs in Missouri.
Since the previous tax credit lapsed in late 2013, production companies have bypassed Missouri and taken their projects to states that offer financial inducements.
Film and TV crews spend a lot of money when they film on location. Witnesses testifying before the committee recalled the $7 million economic impact that southeast Missouri experienced when “Gone Girl,” a film starring Ben Affleck, was filmed in Cape Girardeau early in 2013.
Film and TV crews spend a lot of money when they film on location. Witnesses testifying before the committee recalled the $7 million economic impact that southeast Missouri experienced when “Gone Girl,” a film starring Ben Affleck, was filmed in Cape Girardeau early in 2013.
Likewise, production of “Up in the Air,” a 2009 comedic drama starring George Clooney, injected $12 million into the St. Louis area. Even “Winter’s Bone,” a low-budget film that brought actress Jennifer Lawrence national acclaim in 2010, is credited with $800,000 of spending in southwest Missouri.
This economic activity all but vanished when the Legislature did not renew Missouri’s previous film and television production tax credit.
In recent years, several projects that appear to be Missouri-based were actually filmed elsewhere. Viewers watching the Netflix series “Ozark” assume they’re seeing the Lake of the Ozarks, but filming actually occurs in Georgia. HBO’s series “Sharp Objects” is set in Missouri, but also is filmed in Georgia. Not a single minute of the Oscar-winning movie “Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri” was filmed in our state.
To attract future film and television projects to Missouri, SB 366 allows a tax credit equal to 25 percent of qualifying in-state expenses for film production companies when at least half of the project is filmed in Missouri. It also places a $4.5 million cap on the program.
To attract future film and television projects to Missouri, SB 366 allows a tax credit equal to 25 percent of qualifying in-state expenses for film production companies when at least half of the project is filmed in Missouri. It also places a $4.5 million cap on the program.
3 comments:
The granny starvers in the goPEE have never seen a corporate tax cut or credit that they didn't like. For some reason they never call that corporate welfare.
Both parties do this across country...seems 411pm is limited in knowledge of sad practice being bipartisan( maybe not in Mo.)...shame both sides have so many poorly educated pundits...
What's good for the red donkey is bad for the blue elephant in 4:11's eyes.
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