Hooray for Hollywood: Florida taxpayers could hand film industry $1B tax break

As Tinseltown readies for Oscar night, Florida's film and entertainment production industry is reportedly lobbying lawmakers for $1 billion in tax perks.

The giveaways, or subsidies, allow for selected companies producing films, commercials, music videos, “high-impact” television shows and interactive websites to skip out on as much as 30 percent of their tax bills as long as they’re working in Florida.

Everyone else will pick up the difference, Matthew Mitchell, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, told Watchdog.org.

“The vast majority of evidence suggests these are not schemes that raise more revenue than they lose,” Mitchell said. “Clearly, the taxpayer loses.”

Why would lawmakers go for it?

According to a Department of Economic Opportunity report: to encourage the use of Florida as a filming site and to “sustain the workforce.”

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