The Challenge

Empire State Development (ESD) administers the New York State Film Tax Credit Program, a program first established in 2004 and designed to increase the film and television production and post-production industry presence in New York State, but the economic and fiscal impact of the program was unknown. The Program provides tax credit incentives to qualified production companies that produce feature films, television series, television pilots and films for television, and/or incur post-production costs associated with these productions to support the growth of the film industry in New York State.

The Solution

Camoin 310 was hired by ESD to calculate the economic and fiscal impact of the State’s investment in the program over the years 2013 and 2014, again in 2015 and 2016, in 2017 and 2018, and in 2019 and 2020.

The Impact

For this analysis, Camoin 310 conducted research including a review of existing literature on the topic, industry data collection and analysis, and interviews with experts in the film industry in New York State. The reports provide background on the tax credit programs, calculate and analyze the economic and fiscal impact of the program in NYS, and finally estimates the return on investment (ROI) ratio that compares the annual investment in the credit (amount of credits issued) to the annual income that state and local governments receive (amount of tax revenue generated by the industry).

Photo by Donovan Silva on Unsplash