New York State’s newly approved budget, passed by the state senate nine days after the April 1 start of the fiscal year, includes a three-year extension of the Film Production Tax Credit program, the production incentive that has helped make New York — both state and city — a hotbed of production activity in recent years.
The overall $153.1 billion budget includes provisions for the three-year extension of a production incentives program that hadn’t been set to expire until 2019. As proposed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the new extension brings the expiration date up to 2022, reupping with $420 million per year to sustain a program that includes fully refundable tax credits of 30% on productions and post-production costs incurred in New York state, plus an additional 10% credit on projects with budgets of more than $500,000.
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“This will ensure stability and predictability for television and motion picture producers that utilize one of the most successful incentive programs worldwide,” said Chris Dodd, who is Hollywood’s chief lobbyist as the chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. “New York will continue to create thousands of jobs and add billions of dollars to the New York State economy as even more television series and feature film productions will locate in the Empire State.”
In New York City alone, the long list of TV shows that film in the city range from “The Blacklist” to “Gotham” to “Mr. Robot” to “Younger,” in addition to a slew of daytime and late night talk shows and news offerings. Feature films currently in the area include Nicole Holofcener’s “The Land of Steady Habits” and Neil Burger’s “Untouchable” with Nicole Kidman and Bryan Cranston.
Other components of the state budget, which was passed late April 9, include raising the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18, as well as free tuition at public colleges for families making less than $125,000 annually.
