California ups the ante in Hollywood tax credit arms race

By James Poulos | Cal Watchdog

The market for movie and television production is now an incentive-laden free-for-all. Faced with fierce competition from statehouses around the country, two California assemblymen have introduced a new bill upping the stakes in the tax credit arms race.

Assembly Bill 1839 has been introduced by Raul Bocanegra, D-Pacoima, and Mike Gatto, D-Burbank. The bill offers enlarged tax breaks to the big-budget productions that lawmakers from Los Angeles to Sacramento want to see back in California.

Back in 2009, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won support for the $100 million-a-year credit program still in place today. Now, however, funds have run out. Tallying up the economic productivity boosted since then, Bocanegra and Gatto say AB1839 should extend California’s industry tax credit to 2022. Some 270 projects under the current law yielded $4.75 billion and 51,000 new jobs, mostly high-paying, the assemblymen told the Los Angeles Times.

at Cal Watchdog.