By Robert Goldrich

ALBANY, N.Y. --

The New York Assembly’s proposed state budget for fiscal year 2006-’07 includes language that would establish tax credits for filming of commercials. This is viewed as a significant step towards bringing an incentive package for the advertising industry to pass, helping New York to keep and attract more spot filming.
    The Assembly now joins the State Senate in incorporating the tax credit provisions into its budget. While the film-friendly language is different between the Senate and Assembly, the fact that both houses have recognized the importance of commercialmaking bodes well for the measure.
    However, passage of that measure is not a fait accompli. Legislative jockeying on the budget still needs to take place, and that process is inherently unpredictable. Furthermore, the approval of Gov. George Pataki (R-N.Y.) is also required once the legislature sends him an agreed upon budget.
    At press time, the timetable called for the ’06-’07 state budget to be finalized next month and then relayed onto the governor’s office for signature. If the spot lensing tax credit incentives are in a Pataki-signed budget, they could go into effect on July 1, when the new fiscal year begins. That’s the start date in the Assembly’s current budget language; however, the Senate proposal would make the incentives retroactive to Jan. 1, 2006.
    Those conflicting start dates between the Senate and Assembly–and other differences–figure to be ironed out in the budget wrangling that will take place at least through the rest of this month, if not into April.
    The Senate’s budget language for the spot tax credits is similar to that reflected in the testimony offered last month during a joint budget hearing before the state’s Assembly Ways and Means, and Senate Finance Committees by Matt Miller, president/CEO of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP).
    Miller outlined three prime components of the initiative, which is estimated to cost some $7 million annually:

• A growth credit provision designed to encourage companies to increase the amount of business they bring to the state by providing a refundable tax credit of 20 percent of qualifying production costs solely on newly generated business. The amount will be based on the difference between the total qualified production costs of the current year and the total amount of production costs of the preceding year. The growth credit would be funded by $3 million of the aforementioned $7 million total.
• A downstate jobs credit which looks to retain the existing share of work that is currently being produced in New York. This provision would apportion $3 million in credit funding annually to eligible commercial production companies that conduct filming activities within the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District. The jobs credit is five percent of the total production costs that exceed $500,000 and would be distributed on a first come, first served basis.
• And an upstate jobs credit which recognizes that spot production regularly occurs outside major metropolitan areas that are considered traditional production centers. This incentive component would provide $1 million annually to all eligible commercial production houses that participate in filming activity outside the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District. This jobs credit would be five percent of the total production costs that exceed $200,000 and would be distributed on a first come, first served basis.

    While the Senate budget language pretty much coincides with the outline delineated by Miller, the Assembly provisions differ in some respects, a prime example being the percentages assigned to the growth and retention credits. Instead of the respective 20 percent growth and five percent retention credits, the Assembly language proposes 10 percent for growth and 10 percent for business retention.
    In his earlier referenced testimony, Miller pointed out that New York State has experienced major erosion of its commercialmaking business. He cited a leading industry payroll company’s finding that New York’s share of overall nationwide payroll in commercials has plummeted from 45 percent in ’90 to around 18 percent in’04. In today’s dollars, this equates to a decrease of $406 million in below-the-line payroll expenditures for the State of New York from its level in ’90. That translates into a loss of nearly $1.4 billion in direct economic impact from spot production in the New York region. (Direct economic impact includes hotel, equipment rental, stage rental and other non-payroll expenditures related to filming.)
    AICP executive VP Steve Caplan noted that the latest legislative-related development, the inclusion of the incentive package in the Assembly budget, is “cause for optimism…We’re extremely pleased that both houses recognize the importance of this program, and the positive impact that our industry has on the economy.”

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