THE “EASE” OF LOUISIANA AT LOCATIONS EXPO
Bossier City Film Liaison Pam Glorioso helps a prospective client at Locations Expo.
STORY BY W. H. BOURNE PHOTOS BY ODIN LINDBLOM
T
he Incentives Office at Ease hosted its annual tax incentives seminar recently. Clint Mock, Louisiana CPA, and Chris Stelly, executive entertainment director of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, were on hand to explain the program changes after the recent fiscal session. “Louisiana’s program is exactly the same and hasn’t changed, but there have been a few tweaks to the program. The main thing that came out of the session was the 60 day processing time on the initial cert side and 120 days on the final cert side. You can definitely plan your film and your budget around those processing time frames. While we’ve been running well beneath those processing times, now it’s codified so producers and investors have a firm time frame. The bill also creates a tax credit registry within the (Louisiana) Department of Revenue. So immediately, as of July 1, we no longer have to accept any
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LOUISIANA FILM & VIDEO MAGAZINE
ISSUE FOUR 2013
notices of transfer at our office, so the process now is a lot smoother. They’ve narrowed down the time frame to transfer the tax credit to 10 days to create transparency. The goal was to eliminate any opportunity for an unscrupulous producer to double sell the tax credits... (The bill) created a central database so a taxpayer or end user can go to the (Louisiana) Department of Revenue’s Web site and say, ‘Are there any tax credits left for this project? Have they been issued? Have any been transferred?’ It’s more of a protective measure for the end user of the tax credits and that’s a good thing.” Ease was also doing demos of their software at the conference, including their popular budgeting software that lets producers compare incentives from various states and countries. The software lets you tag portions of the budget to give an in-depth comparison. At first glance, many incentive programs seem similar but most are not as generous as Louisiana’s when it comes to covering above the line in-state spend. After personally testing the software myself, I can easily say it’s an
Chris Stelly, executive director of Louisiana Economic Development, speaks at the Ease tax incentive seminar.
invaluable tool for producers. After the Ease Conference, Stelly traveled across town for the opening of AFCI’s annual Locations Expo, where he was joined by others from Louisiana to promote Hollywood South. Film commissioners from ShreveportBossier, Lafayette, New Orleans and Baton Rouge joined representatives from around the world as they advertised their locations and tax incentives to prospective producers and location scouts. LFV