Senate Republican says he will block brokerage firms from selling state tax credits
by Michael C. Bender | March 25th, 2010State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, questioned a Palm Beach Post story from the Senate floor this morning, saying his proposal would not let state tax credits be sold out of state. The story does not say tax credits would be sold outside Florida and it’s not clear what out-of-state companies could even take advantage of a Florida tax credit.
Don Gaetz
Gaetz, however, said on the floor that these investment companies, such as New Jersey-based Tax Credits, LLC (whose president said he helped craft the current bill), could not buy state tax credits and sell them to other companies. In at least 14 other states the let the film industry sell its tax credits, brokers generally buy a tax credit for about 85 percent of the value, mark it up a few points, and sell it to another company, like a WalMart or Bank of America, that can pocket the remaining savings. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, criticized this process as inefficient and vetoed a bill last year. Rhode Island’s Republican governor is urging legislators there to repeal their with “transferable” tax credits program.
“There’s nothing in law that would allow it,” Gaetz said in an interview after the Senate session this morning.
“And if somebody established a brokerage business of the kind that has been criticized, and I think properly so in other states, I’d be the first one to do what I could to eliminate it,” he said. “We’re not trying to create business for brokers. We’re trying to create competitiveness for our film and digital media industry.”
But House Republican Reps. Kevin Ambler of Tampa and Stephen Precourt of Orlando, the architects of the film tax incentive package, both said in interviews that sparking business for the brokerage companies is an added benefit of their bill.
Their $55 million package (HB 697) is up for a vote this afternoon in the House Finance & Tax Council. Gaetz’s three-year, $193-million “jobs bill” (SB 1752) which includes $20 in film tax credits, passed the Senate, 38-0, this morning.
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March 25th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Every little bit helps here. But trying to restart our economy from the top down method is old news. Customers & companies do not have money to spend. And credit is not money! So incentives will not help us much. The issue that must be addressed is outside our states laws. And open trade has gutted this nations workforce and money flow. Massive lack of immigrations enforcement has eroded our taxable labor income. We need jobs! We need people making money so we can generate taxable income again. And for this we need protections on goods that are in demand right now. And most of those goods are low cost consumer goods. Iphones, Netbooks, energy star appliances, mobile medical devices, mobile communication devices and other such low cost electronic goods. If we can’t afford to keep Motorola, Panasonic, GE Medical, from making these goods here in our backyard then why are we letting them take money out or our community by selling us imported goods? We need to be careful now. Because the demands for low cost goods is quickly on the rise. And we can’t compete with china on making them. We need to create a bill that stops this fall. We need to increase the states sales tax on non-US made goods. And we remove the sales tax on any products that are produces here in FL. & prey this will help companies like Motorola and GE to start production up here again.
March 26th, 2010 at 12:20 am
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