WisBusiness: Actor Shalhoub makes public push to keep film tax credit

By WisBusiness Staff

Actor and Green Bay native Tony Shalhoub — who wrote a letter last month asking Gov. Jim Doyle to keep the state’s tax credits for film production in the 2009-2011 budget — is featured in a new Web video hyping the economic impact of moviemaking.

The star of TV’s “Monk,” along with others who worked on the independent film “Feed the Fish” this winter, said the tax credits allowed for an unusual economic boon to Door County last winter, when tourism dollars usually dry up.

“If this movie does well, which we believe it will, we will want to come back to Wisconsin with larger budget projects, and there are already some things in the pipeline,” Shalhoub says in the 10-minute video. “But we need these tax incentives to stay in place.”

The film tax credit program could be brought back to life by the Joint Finance Committee with strict new measures that could help to curb the excesses that landed it on Gov. Jim Doyle’s cut list.

Rep. Tamara Grigsby, D-Milwaukee and a member of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, has authored an amendment that she says fixes loopholes in the state’s film tax credit program. Dems on the committee have been moving toward keeping the tax credit despite the governor’s moves to eliminate it, and Grigsby is offering up her amendment as a path to a compromise.

“If we can fix it rather than completely trashing it, maybe the governor will see the benefits,” said Grigsby. “So let’s fix it if we can and bring those jobs and that industry to Wisconsin.”

Proposed changes to the program include:

– a requirement that 35 percent of the production has to be in Wisconsin to be eligible for the tax credits;

– a $15 million cap on the amount of credits a project can receive;

– a “millionaire’s provision” that any salary of more than $1 million to an individual on the production is not eligible for credits;

– incentives to hire in-state workers for film productions;

– more stringent oversight of the program from the Department of Commerce;

– and an application fee per project of two percent of the total production budget or $5,000, whichever is lower.