Budget: $56m for screen industry
The Labor Government will provide $43m to the Australian Taxation Office and $13m. to Screen Australia, over four years, for the enhancement of its screen tax offsets program.
The changes include lowering the threshold of the Producer Offset; direct funding for documentaries under $500,000 in place of the PO; an increase in the Location Offset from 15 to 16.5 percent, and the PDV Offset from 15 to 30 percent; the addition of certain production costs to be claimed as QAPE; replacing the PO 65-episode limit for TV series with a 65 broadcast hour cap; and the return of the ABS industry survey.
The changes will be partly offset by $48m in savings (over four years), result of removing the GST amounts from QAPE, and increasing minimum threshold for documentaries from $250,000 to $500,000.
| 2010‑11 | 2011‑12 | 2012‑13 | 2013‑14 | 2014‑15 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen Australia | ‑ | 2.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| Australian Taxation Office | ‑ | ‑2.5 | ‑1.5 | ‑0.5 | ‑0.5 |
| Total | ‑ | ‑ | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 |
SPAA executive director welcomed the announcements and commended Minister Simon Crean “for acting on some of the key industry concerns raised in the Government’s recent review of the Independent Production Sector”.
“We were not expecting to see much in the way of additional direct funding in this tough budget so what’s been achieved is a great result,” said Brown. “The only major disappointment is the decision not to increase the Offshore Location Incentive to 30 percent. The industry is dependent on a mix of domestic and inbound international production and unfortunately Australia is no longer competitive in attracting offshore production. We hope the government will revisit this issue offline from the budget process.”
