Tax credits change the landscape of filming

How Hollywood sells tax credits

Each square represents $100,000

As more states allow the sale of film tax credits, studios and producers turn to brokers to find buyers, who can cut their state tax bills as much as 15%. Here’s an example of how the process works:

How the states stack up

Note: Oklahoma, West Virginia , Washington, Rhode Island, Colorado, Montana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Wyoming, Missouri, Maine and Minnesota each distributed $5 million or less in incentives. West Virgina, Rhode Island and Missouri offer transferable credits.

As more states provide more and bigger incentives, film production has shifted away from California to New York and many other states. States approved or handed out $1.5 billion in tax credits and film incentives in 2012, with New York leading the way. Thirteen states allow the sale or transfer of tax credits, which Nevada will also offer starting Jan. 1.

       States that allow sale of tax credits

Hollywood’s decline in film production

Note: Methodology for the counting of production days changed in 2008, but the earlier numbers are still used for comparison purposes.

Local permitted production days for feature films peaked in 1996. The local production economy has slowly started to rebound since 2009.

So long, Hollywood; hello, Georgia

Does not include re-releases, documentaries, animated features and live performance films. Dates of filming may not be in the same year as release date.

A snapshot of two years, 1997 and 2012, illustrates the diminishing role California plays in the production of feature films. Incentives help drive the film industries in other states as well as around the world. Here are the U.S. states, Canadian provinces and countries where the top 100 films at the box office released that year were entirely or partially filmed.