Sunday, September 18, 2011

Jersey Sure

This article is a bit funny. I have never seen the show "Jersey Shore" (or is that the "show" Jersey Shore ?), but I am assured that it is entertaining in a not-very-demanding way.

The disturbing thing is the comments. "Natale," obviously educated in the NJ public school system, thinks she has a smackdown argument.

Sorry NYMag, but this is a shitty article. The tax credit is based on only what the entire production SPENT in New Jersey.. camera rental, lodging, food, transportation.. all during filming that specific season.. the production is entitled to a 20% rebate based on locally hired crew and monies actually spent solely in NJ AND only if reviewed by a qualified CPA and then approved by the NJ Film Office.. they usually use it towards satisfying the NJ corporate business state tax. If the total refund was only $420,000, that means MTV spent $2.1 Million dollars ALONE in NJ (that counts as revenue for local businesses as well as job creation!!) .. do your homework.

So, the reason that it is okay to rebate a large chunk back to this horrible show is that it creates a lot of the tax dollars that are being rebated.

Um...Natale, how about this: lower the taxes in the first place. Then you wouldn't have to tax the companies that create jobs (and that is what ALL companies do, Natale, not just "Jersey Sore), and you would have more jobs.

(Nod to Anonyman, who has started referring to his ass as "The Distribution")

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Production tax credits are of course based on magical thinking about fiscal impact multipliers and that sort of thing. I have a post where I ruminate on a radio show where a state legislator kept repeating "returned to economy seven times over" like he was saying "I do believe in fairies."

The "Natale" person does have a point though which is that Jersey Shore got the credit as part of a generally open program. If New Jersey were to exempt shows from such a program on the basis of being uncomfortable with their content this would seem like a viewpoint-based speech regulation. Let's just hope that this controversy drives NJ to repeal the credit altogether (and perhaps engage in tax simplification more broadly).