TAX INCENTIVES AND REBATES

Tax Incentives and rebates have become an essential part of financing film productions around the world. Global Incentives has experience with incentives in all jurisdictions and works closely with banks and lenders to ensure that a production can receive interim financing of any tax incentive, including rebates and transferable tax credits.

Canadian tax credits are offered by both provincial and federal governments. Any production doing work in Canada, either in production or post production, can receive production service tax credits.  Production service credits are either based on labor costs incurred in Canada, or in the case of Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, on labor and non-labor local spend.  Productions produced by Canadian producers or through international treaty coproductions can receive Canadian content tax credits. 

Many US states, including California, New York, Louisiana, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, offer film incentives. US incentives are generally calculated on local spend, including both labor costs and costs of materials and equipment. In many states, non-resident labor costs are qualifying spend. US incentives are generally either a refundable tax credit (ie. a rebate) or a transferable tax credit. Refundable tax credits are paid out directly to the production entity that incurred the costs, while transferable tax credits must be sold to another taxpayer in the state.

Global Incentives provides full administrative services for all US, Canadian, UK, Australian and New Zealand film incentives, from preliminary application and registration to receipt of the refund check for the tax credit or rebate. 

Global Incentives oversees all aspects of the process to apply for and receive production incentives, including:

• - reviewing the budget and production documentation to ensure that the production complies with the regulations
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• - preparing an initial estimate and bank opinion letter of the tax credit or rebate based on a breakdown of the final locked budget
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• - preparing and filing applications for preliminary certification or registration
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• - advising the production accountant on the proper coding system to record eligible expenditures
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• - monitoring costs throughout production to ensure maximum tax credit refunds and to identify any variances in the projected tax credit
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• - liaising with production staff to ensure that the necessary documentation is being collected (eg. residency declarations) and obtaining all supporting documentation from production before the production office wraps
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• - reviewing the final cost report and general ledger and making necessary coding changes in the accounting database
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• - preparing and filing the final applications for accreditation
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• - preparing documentation for and working with a local CA or CPA firm to complete an audited statement of production costs, if required
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• - assisting in the preparation and filing of tax returns for the production entity
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• - responding to all government inquiries throughout the review process and audit
• closely tracking the progress of the government audit to ensure it is completed as quickly as possible

Global Incentives 2012