Support for 1449 "An Act To Expand Tax Incentives for Visual Media Productions".

I haven’t had time to sit down and write about the wonderful group that showed up for the testimony for LD1449"An Act To Expand Tax Incentives for Visual Media Productions".

The room was full of between 40 and 50 supporters. 22 people testified in support of the bill and no one testified against the bill.

The reaction from the taxation committee was very positive and they were all patient while listening to the testimony. We took over 2 hours of their time in testimony and each of them asked great questions.

The taxation committee understands the benefits. The issue will come in setting money aside to finance the incentives. Money will not be spent by the state until money has come into the state from media production, however that money still has to be set aside in the budgeting process under the current budgeting laws.

This means that a fiscal note will have to be created for the 5 million dollar post- production, investment the state will have to make. This process makes it look like the bill is taking money away from other programs when it will actually create future revenue that will help to increase funding to other programs.

As representative Sirois said at one point during the meeting “75% of something is better than 100% of nothing”

I believe that we are headed in the right direction and the next 2 weeks will be crucial. May 4th is the work session for the taxation committee. I encourage all of you to contact you local representative and senator. It will make and difference and hopefully we can all be involved in bringing more money, creativity and marketing to the state we love.