CLAUDE PARRISH, A MEM-ber of California’s State Board of Equalization (SBE), harked back to his days as a teenager, when circumstance made him responsible for handling a property-tax dilemma that jeopardized the family home. Unsure what to do, he remembered hearing a speech in which an elected official said his door would always be open to help resolve such taxing matters. So Parrish took the politician at his word and got the help necessary to resolve the problem.
Parrish related this story to an ITS gathering last week in Los Angeles. The ITS session (see story, p. 1) helped initiate a dialogue between the industry and the SBE about how most equitably to apply the partial 5% sales and use tax exemption on new equipment purchases made by independent post and visual effects houses in California. The exemption went into effect Jan. 1.
Parrish’s recollection wasn’t merely anecdotal. He proceeded to give his Torrance office address to the ITS audience and said industry business people should feel free to contact him should the need arise. He urged ITS members not to wait two or three years or until they face a possible audit. Instead, he advised them to work now with the SBE to gain a firm understanding of the tax savings and potential liabilities so as to avert any future crises.
In the coming weeks, SBE staffers will take tours of several California post/effects facilities so that they can see firsthand the postproduction process, the equipment involved and how it’s deployed. This experience should prove useful as the SBE fine-tunes how best to apply and interpret the tax-exemption law.
This cooperative orientation, evidenced by Parrish’s remarks and the SBE plan, underscores the high caliber of the lobbying effort orchestrated by the ITS. ITS members and attorney/lobbyist Chris Micheli of lobbying firm Carpenter Snodgrass & Associates, Sacramento and Irvine, worked with state legislators, most notably L.A. Assemblyman Wally Knox, to develop Assembly Bill 2427, a measure proposing the tax exemption. Bolstering the cause was an ITS-commissioned study by Scenic Masters, Madison, Wis., documenting the economic impact of California’s independent post industry. This data was provided to the SBE and then the state legislature, helping put the wheels in motion for the tax-relief legislation, which ultimately passed both state houses and was signed into law by then Governor Pete Wilson. But another hurdle remained when the measure was linked to the defeat of an unrelated proposition on the November ballot (SHOOT, 9/11/98, p. 1). When that proposition fell by the wayside, the path was cleared for industry tax reform (SHOOT, 11/27/98, p. 1).
In introducing guest speakers at the L.A. seminar, ITS/Southern California board member Leon Silverman thanked a number of companies-and the ITS itself-for financial contributions that made the lobbying effort possible. "It was a significant expense that will ultimately benefit the entire industry," said Silverman.
But beyond making a case for ITS dues, Silverman’s observation also sadly reaffirms the rules of the lobbying game: No matter how just the cause, you’d better have the money to state your case to elected officials.
The nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics researched lobbying-disclosure reports for 1997; the bottom line was that $1.17 billion was spent that year to lobby Congress, the White House and the federal bureaucracy. Companies, labor unions, interest groups and municipalities reported hiring 14,484 lobbyists, an army that outnumbers members of Congress 27 to one. Among the biggest spenders: the pharmaceuticals industry at $59.7 million, oil and gas at $51.7 million and the automobile biz at $34.6 million.
Such is the price of persuasion. At times it yields positive reform, like that carved in California’s post niche by the relatively modestly funded ITS effort; other times, the toll exacted by the bigger-ticket spenders isn’t always so positive, with the bill ultimately paid for by the public at large.
