[Editor's Note: This story has been corrected to reflect that LBP's Tim Mathis wrote the report.]
Louisiana’s lawmakers must be seeing stars.
That would at least explain the continued push to lure Hollywood to Louisiana via tax credits, which according to the Louisiana Budget Project, is expensive and has done very little for the state’s economy.
LBP analyst Tim Mathis writes in a recent report that the Motion Picture Investor Credit has proven unsuccessful in creating permanent jobs, and for every $7.29 paid in credits, only $1 comes back to the state’s coffers.
That credit alone resulted in $85.2 million in losses in the state’s individual income tax revenue during the 2012 fiscal year. When you combine all the film tax credits offered by Louisiana, the amount in lost revenue for the 2012 fiscal year comes to a whopping $231 million. In the last 10 years, the amount in lost revenue caused by the state's film industry tax credits equals more than $1 billion.
What’s more, Mathis notes, is that the overwhelming majority of individuals to claim the credit – more than 90 percent – reported annual incomes of more than $250,000.
“Most people who claim the film credit buy them through brokers in $10,000 bundles from movie producers in order to offset the taxes they owe,” writes Mathis.
LBP director Jan Moller says the incentives Louisiana offers to the film industry are disproportionately increasing while budget cuts to education and health care keep coming.
“It’s a question of priorities and we think it’s probably time to start reigning in the cost of these subsidies,” Moller says. “The question is not whether we want the film industry here, the real question is what are we willing to pay to bring them here?”
The state launched the film industry subsidy program in 1992 under the notion that it would begin being phased out in 2010. Yet, state lawmakers had other ideas, and in 2009 passed legislation making the program permanent.
Click here and here for more on the Louisiana Budget Project’s stance on the incentives the state offers to the film industry.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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