Once again your are on the wrong side of the math - which just has been proven conclusively when North Carolina lost hundreds of millions in tax revenue when they eliminated the movie tax credit. Now they realize their mistake and are re-instating it two years later.
Let's take a look (once again) at the history of the North Carolina movie tax credit. North Carolina was home to a booming movie and television production industry centered around Wilmington. This industry brought in hundreds of millions of dollars each year from outside our state for hotel stays, meals, personal income tax payments, and other taxes paid during the production of films.
The conservative state legislators decided to eliminate this tax credit because they hated Hollywood and its values (their quote, not mine). They even went so far to say that they would never let Harry Potter film in our state because it was anti-Christian. This all originally started out when a collection of bible-belt Christian groups lobbied legislators to get rid of Hollywood in our state. The legislators decision to eliminate the movie tax credit had nothing to do with financial math for our state but only with their social views (which has been a continuing problem with the legislature).
The N&O, N.C. Commerce Department and others you criticize above actually did the math and outlined very directly how much tax revenue the state would lose due to cutting the movie tax credit. The would lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year in tax revenue for a business tax credit which they only spent tens of millions in rebates.
The estimates of the losses in tax revenue to our state were proven to be exactly correct (nearly to the dime). After a mere two years, the state had to re-instate the movie tax credit to balance the state budget and prevent a further collapse of employment in our state.
Our state offers many other business tax credits that are industry specific. A large number of these tax credits are agricultural. These twisted conservative rural legislators are farmers (or their friends are) and fully support these other agricultural tax credits -- which are much larger than the movie tax credits in our state while providing very little revenue enhancement from business increases or other taxes collected (hotel, meals, etc.).
I support business tax credits. However government cannot be in the business of picking winners and losers within a particular business niche. Therefore a tax credit should never be for a single specified company but for an entire industry where all the players can take advantage of the credit.
The intent of a business tax credit should be to grow the economy of the state and bring dollars into the state from out of state. Tourism, non-major league sports, and movies are very effective at bringing out of state money into a state. They all generate significant state & county tax revenues from other sources such as hotel taxes and meals taxes while boosting employment and the state's economy.
The elimination of the movie tax credit was simply designed to drive the movie industry out of our state to satisfy the social views for conservative legislators who fail basic math. It had nothing to do with "reforming the tax code" otherwise they would have eliminated all the other business tax credits -- but they support all these other tax credits and simply want to kill the one that supports "evil Hollywood".
Sadly it took 20 years to built up the film industry in Wilmington, the conservative clowns in the state legislature managed to chase off nearly every single production in two years. It will difficult to attract the industry back to our state quickly, but hopefully re-instating the movie tax credit will improve the situation over the upcoming decade. Yet this is scant comfort to the 4400 people who lost fully time jobs directly tied to the movie industry in our state as well as the 6100 who lost part time jobs.
FALSE
You claimed their was a 30 million investment by the state of NC that returned 200 million dollars. This was nothing but projections by the movie industry paid consultants that passed them along to the Commerce dept.
Now, when the subsidies were cut, the same movie industry paid consultants come up with numbers that they pass on to the Commerce dept showing hellish damage because they no longer get the subsidies.
These are not real, independently audited numbers that are being used. When other states have done independent audits, they find that it
is all bullshit! And that is why they got out of the movie business. It's a bad investment.
Of course when you stop throwing 30 million dollars at an industry there are going to loads of people out of work that depended on that 30 million dollars for their jobs.
The point of the 30 million dollars is not to just 'employ some people'. It is to get a positive risk adjusted return on that investment. And if the investment fails to achieve that, then it could be spent better elsewhere, no matter what it does to the people dependent on the 30 million dollars for their jobs.
What this all boils down to is that you want to believe movie industry consultants financial projections and analysis and not independent audited roi analysis. This is very little different from the global warming scam.
They're putting the money back in this scam for the same reason it always happens. Special interests rule. The special interests squawk loud, the media takes their side, financial projections are conjured up, and there you go. Movie deals, alternative energy deals, etc, etc.
This all leads to one overriding question. Why are you hellbent on this? Why are you determined to fight to the bitter end to put gov't in charge of investment decisions for the people of NC? Why don't you want them to invest their own money? Why do you insist on continually trying to validate paid consultants numbers instead of relying on what other states have done with independent audits?
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