As office chatter focuses on who wore what to the Oscars and the best and worst acceptance speeches, Connecticut will be making a decision that could determine its place on the red carpet.
There is a public hearing Monday to decide the future of the tax credit for movie studios that operate in the state.
As the state’s economy reels and the budget deficit bloats, some lawmakers are considering cutting the film tax credits.
Earlier this month, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she’d like to cap them at $30 million per year, the Stamford Advocate reports.
"We'll be done. That kind of cap is really not enough to attract the industry in a meaningful way," Bruce Heller, co-founder and managing director of the Connecticut Film Center, a production facility in Stamford, told the newspaper.
Tax credits are available to those who make motion pictures, television programs, advertising and video games.
If you spend more than $50,000 in the state, you begin earning credits on nearly every single line item, according to the Connecticut Film Center.
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The tax credit costs the state $90 million annually, according to a 2008 report from the Office of Fiscal Analysis, the Stamford Advocate reports.
Many, including the Connecticut Production Coalition, fear that the end of the tax credit would mean that movie studios would leave the state.
The group is lobbying to keep the tax credits and has called upon people who support the credit to attend the hearing.
