The head of one of Hollywood’s largest talent agencies warned state leaders that a new budget bill threatens job gains from California’s film and TV credit program.
Legislators earlier this year passed a provision in the state budget that extends limitations on corporate tax credits, including a $5-million state tax credit cap each year.
But film industry advocates say the corporate tax credit cap will hurt film producers and undercut the effectiveness of the state’s expanded film and TV tax credits.
Lawmakers more than doubled annual funding for the program last year to $750 million in an effort to boost jobs and stem the exodus of film work from California.
CAA Chief Executive Bryan Lourd called for state leaders to create an exemption for tax credits earned under the expanded film and TV program.
“Without this fix, we risk destabilizing a program that is critical to keeping film and television production in California and the thousands of jobs it supports,” Lourd wrote in an Aug. 11 letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, California State Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) and President Pro Tempore Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara).
“California must make itself competitive with the rest of the country and the world if it hopes to have a thriving entertainment ecosystem,” Lourd wrote. “Honoring commitments that have already been made to the entertainment industry is an essential step in achieving that goal.”
Film industry advocates expected producers would be exempted from the tax credit cap.
“It’s a reversal of California economic policy as it relates to the entertainment industry in an unhelpful and uncompetitive direction,” said Hilary Krane, CAA’s chief legal officer, in an interview. . “It undermines people’s ability to plan for the economics of the program because they all counted on a certain amount coming in under the previous rules that they were entitled to and had, but now can’t use.”
Last month, more than three dozen California lawmakers signed a letter calling attention to the issue. Hollywood unions also have raised alarm.
“The result of the changes is that production companies will lose the full value of credits already earned in exchange for creating middle-class entertainment industry jobs and other economic benefits to the State,” the Entertainment Union Coalition said last month.
Nick Miller, Rivas’ spokesperson, said the state Assembly is taking a hard look at the issue.
“Our lawmakers strengthened California’s film and TV jobs program last year and will keep fighting for creative industry workers,” Miller said in an email.
Newsom’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
Time is running out for a fix to happen this session, which ends in less than two weeks.
State Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles) said state leaders are working on introducing legislation soon to address the issue.
Already, tens of thousands of jobs have come back to Southern California due to the modernization of the film and TV tax credit program, he said.
“We just saw the beginning of that resurgence and we don’t want to nip that in the bud,” Zbur said in an interview.
