Louisiana’s House of Representatives just voted overwhelmingly in favor of eliminating the state’s $150 million film production tax credit program as part of a push to eliminate a wide swath of such incentives in favor of lower corporate income tax rates.
Legislators voted 87-12 in favor of sunsetting the tax credit program by June 30 of next year. The proposal now heads to the state senate as part of a special session called by Gov. Jeff Landry.
We are losing population, and we have the highest corporate tax rate in the South. We’re uncompetitive. We’re not attracting business here. And over the years we tried to band-aid that and remedy it with a lot of these credits,” Republican State Rep. Julie Emerson told The Advocate.
Louisiana was the first state to adopt a tax incentive for film production back in 1992, with an amended version offering a 25-40% rebate on in-state production spending that passed in 2002 leading to a boom for the state’s entertainment industry. Recent films that have shot in the state include the Netflix movies “Hit Man” starring Glen Powell and “Rebel Ridge” starring Aaron Pierre.
In the years since, the vast majority of states have adopted their own tax incentive programs in a fierce competition to attract film and television productions that will boost the local economy. California recently fired its own salvo in that competition as Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his support behind a drastic cap raise of his state’s tax credit program from $330 million to $750 million, which would make it the second largest in the country behind only Georgia.
But in Louisiana, Landry is pushing for a wide swath of tax incentive programs to be cut and replaced with lower corporate tax income rates and non-tax-based incentives that would be open to all businesses rather than tailored to any specific industry. Proposals for those incentives will be presented to legislators early next year.
