CAA boss warns of threat to California's film and TV jobs program

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Set us as preferred 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 coun...