(WWJ) – Starting in 2008, Michigan was home to a bustling film industry, thanks to lucrative tax incentives. Movies like “Transformers,” “Gran Torino,” “Red Dawn” and others were all filmed in the state during that era.
About five years later, though, the incentives went away under then-Gov. Rick Snyder. And so did the industry.
But now lawmakers are introducing efforts to bring back new film incentives to once again entice the film industry to come back to Michigan. On a new Daily J podcast WWJ’s Zach Clark finds out what the new incentives would look like and how the plan would be different than before.
Sen. Dana Polehanki (D-Livonia) says the Michigan Multimedia Jobs Act is different from the prior plan in that it offers a tax rebate, as opposed to cutting checks to companies.
“It offers a tax rebate only if a production company provides receipts that show they spent money in Michigan, used Michigan vendors and Michigan personnel,” Polehanki said. “So it’s a big difference in approach. It’s a smarter, more Michigan-centric bill and I think it deserves to get a hearing, so I plan to introduce it very soon.”
Bill Latka, a board member of the Michigan Film Industry Association and owner of Rivet Entertainment, says previously, money was leaving the state. But this time around, the credit is “issued as a refundable tax credit, which means that if you have a Michigan tax liability, you can credit that tax liability with the money you get back from this incentive.”
In essence, the money never leaves the state. That’s “100% different from last time,” according to Latka. He says having a consistent film industry in Michigan would benefit more than just "movie people."
"This is really about small businesses, too. A decent sized project will hire 16 different vendors: catering, hotels, artisans, personal trainers, the hotel industry alone," he said. "A movie will come to town and be here for three months. They'll spend 12,000 room nights at hotels. That's a huge boom to small businesses all across the state."
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