Entertainment tax incentives are one of the greatest tools in the arsenal of filmmaking. They pay a portion of production expenditures back to the filmmaker, while creating powerful economic engines for the states who implement them properly. They are high in the list of considerations for executives to sign off before a movie receives the go-ahead for production, even to the point of dictating the location of where a production is filmed. Yet, they are misunderstood by the filmmakers who use them, the politicians who create them, the economists who measure them, and even the scholars who study them. This book puts all the pieces together in a comprehensive look at how the entertainment industry works, how it uses incentives, and how incentives can benefit a filmmaker – or a state.

Entertainment tax incentives are one of the greatest tools in the arsenal of filmmaking. They pay a portion of production expenditures back to the filmmaker, while creating powerful economic engines for the states who implement them properly. They are high in the list of considerations for executives to sign off before a movie receives the go-ahead for production, even to the point of dictating the location of where a production is filmed. Yet, they are misunderstood by the filmmakers who use them, the politicians who create them, the economists who measure them, and even the scholars who study them. This book puts all the pieces together in a comprehensive look at how the entertainment industry works, how it uses incentives, and how incentives can benefit a filmmaker – or a state.