by E. Zachary Knight on June 22, 2009 (photo by Ryan Baxter Photography, available under a CC license)

Film & Television, Governor Henry, Lt.Governor Askins, Oklahoma Film and Music Commission, tax incentives, Television

The 2009 State Legislative Session is now over. Bills have been written, voted on, amended, voted on, passed between houses, voted on some more and finally signed into law by the Governor. Amongst all the chaos and crazy bills to promote hunting and fishing, one bill came through for Oklahoma’s entertainment sector. This bill improves the tax incentives that Oklahoma offers to film and television producers.

What started out as a bill to drop Oklahoma’s food sales tax over the next few years slowly became a tax restructure in several other areas while dropping the intention of removing sales tax on food. The final draft included a provision to increase film and television credits.

Until this time Oklahoma offered a 17% reimbursement of all money spent in Oklahoma for film and television projects with budgets of $500.000 or more and that spent at least $250,000 in the state. Now Oklahoma has altered that to 35% of money spent in Oklahoma for film and television projects with $50,000 or more and that spent at least $25,000 in the state. A huge increase.

The Oklahoma Film and Music Commission sent out a press release that has since been published to their site announcing this new incentive with quotes from both Governor Henry and Lt. Governor Askins:

Governor Brad Henry commented, “The movie and TV industry has changed dramatically over the last few years, with many states having seen a tremendous increase in film revenues after the passage of similar film legislation. Oklahoma’s beautiful and varied terrain makes the state a perfect locale for film and television productions. A competitive incentives package means we will increasingly be able to share what Oklahoma has to offer with the rest of the world.”

Lt. Gov. Jari Askins, who serves as the Chair of the Oklahoma Film Commission said “Oklahoma was one of the first states in the region to offer film rebates but in recent years our neighbors have surpassed our efforts,” Askins explained. “By enhancing our program we will have the economic tools to compete in attracting companies to Oklahoma.”

This new incentive not only will promote the film industry in the state, but will also be a huge boost for the indie film sector as well. The lower barrier of entry means that smaller film projects will now be able to take advantage of something they had been unavailable for many years.

The only downside to these incentives is the cap of $5 million dollars allotted to spending on these incentives. With this limited pool of resources the Film Commission has a first come first served policy. So there is a reason to file your taxes early if you want to take advantage of this opportunity. Any unpaid incentives will roll over into the next year’s budget thus limiting further projects for that year.

Now that Oklahoma has strong competitive incentives for film and television in place, the next step is hopefully applying those incentives to game development.

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