STATEMENT OF SUPPORT

The Honorable Jerry Weller
The Honorable Xavier Becerra
The Honorable Mark Foley
The Honorable Robert Matsui

The undersigned organizations wish to express our gratitude for your commitment to introduce legislation to increase the production of independent film and television programming in the United States. We are deeply grateful for your ongoing effort — as most recently evidenced by the statement you entered in the Congressional Record — to identify a federal legislative response to the accelerating departure of U.S. financed films and television programs to Canada, Mexico and other foreign countries.

As you know, the problem of "runaway productions" has reached epidemic proportions in the past few years. As a result, tens of thousands of U.S. jobs have been lost in the domestic film and television industry as well as in ancillary service industries including hotels and restaurants, post production facilities, equipment rental and transportation. A significant cause of the job loss is other countries offer of huge tax subsidies and other government subsidized inducements to attract U.S. production.

The United States, in order to compete, should also offer , look for reasonable and effective incentives to independent film and television producers. We commend your commitment to introduce one very important approach in the form of legislation providing for a wage based tax credit for targeted U.S. productions which includes the following features:

1. Provide a general business tax credit that would be a dollar-for-dollar offset against any Federal income tax liability.
2. Cap the credit at 25% of the first $25,000 of wages and salaries paid to any employee whose work is in connection with a film or television program substantially produced in the U. S.; and
3. Make the credit available only to targeted film and television productions with costs of more than $500 thousand and less than $10 million.

We look forward to working with you and your colleagues in the Congress next year in the effort to keep U.S. film and television production here at home in the United States.

Thank you again for your support and effort on our behalf.

Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
AFMA (American Film Marketing Association)
ITS (The Association of Imaging Technology and Sound)
Directors Guild of America
Entertainment Industry Development Corporation
Film US
Producers Guild of America
Production Equipment Rental Association (PERA)
Recording Musicians Association
Screen Actors Guild

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