re: WSJ major opinion piece on film industry welfare--quotes Jindal

quote:

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1. We don't know what the direct and indirect economic benefits of the film industry in Louisiana are. I'm not sure the Louisiana Budget Project analyses, or any other analyses, can fully account for that. We can estimate direct economic spillover - direct tax receipts produced by the film companies - but I'm not sure we can calculate indirect services. I'm not sure we can calculate for instance the overall growth of businesses around the films. We also never talk about the incomes that are produced for workers that participate in the industry, which inevitably leads to more money in our tax coffers (not to mention whatever the headline actors pay in state income taxes while they're here. We already know NBA and NFL players are made to pay state income taxes for the time they spend in various states.)

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The economic benefits are very few BUT even so why make the taxpayer bear the brunt while you decide what they are?

quote:

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The Louisiana Budget Project, a left-leaning nonprofit, also has found that most of the benefits of the state's transferable tax credits "flow to a few wealthy taxpayers." Nearly two-thirds of the 2,056 Louisiana taxpayers who claimed credits in 2009 reported incomes above $1 million while 92.25% earned more than $250,000. Taxpayers subsidized each production job to the tune of $60,000.


Well duh, the people who have the resources to bring businesses and films to this state are going to have money. This is a reality of life painted as an emotional outrage.

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You misinterpreted what the quote says. The credits are rarely used by the film companies because they structure their projects in a way to avoid recognizing income in Louisiana so they sell their credits to other taxpayers. It is those other taxpayers the quote is talking about. They are not as you suggest the people that brought the films to the state.

You can buy film tax credits to use to pay your state taxes.