Los Angeles Daily News–

This week, California took a big step toward extending through 2025 the film and television tax credit program that’s been fueling a boom in local production.

The state Assembly and Senate both voted overwhelmingly to add another five years to the current, $330 million annual incentive program that sunsets in 2019. Carefully designed to improve on the state’s previous, frustrating-for-producers $100 million yearly scheme to prevent movies and TV shows from shooting in highly incentivized, out-of-state jurisdictions, the current plan, dubbed 2.0, is considered a great success by almost any measure.

“California’s film tax credit has a proven track record of creating and retaining jobs in the film industry,” Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, D-Whittier, lead author of the AB1734 reauthorization bill which the chamber approved in a 74-2 vote Wednesday, noted in an email. “According to their preliminary data for the first three years of Program 2.0., we have allocated $840 million in tax credits to 150 approved projects. Together, these projects are contributing $5.9 billion of direct in-state spending, including $2.3 billion in wages to the technical crew (this excludes any wages paid for writers, directors, producers or actors as those wages are not eligible for tax credits). Another $1.7 billion has been spent in qualified non-wage expenditures (purchases and rentals from California vendors).”

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