{"id":471389,"date":"2026-09-22T00:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T00:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/471389\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T00:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T00:42:13","slug":"a-timeline-of-californias-tax-breaks-for-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/471389\/","title":{"rendered":"A timeline of California’s tax breaks for Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kate Wolffe<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

A high-profile fight between California Attorney General Rob Bonta<\/a> and Paramount Skydance resolved Monday<\/a> with a settlement that clears a path for the company to continue with its planned acquisition of another century-old studio, Warner Bros. Discovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The deal comes after Paramount threatened to leave the state<\/a> over an antitrust lawsuit led by Bonta and attorneys general from 11 other states that sought to block the $111 billion merger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison reportedly told<\/a> senior leaders of the company \u201cclearly we\u2019re not wanted here\u201d during a meeting in August. However, California has taken several steps since the 2000s to retain studios like Paramount.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fight was the latest chapter in the battle for Hollywood, which has been a priority for California lawmakers and the last three governors.<\/p>\n

Here are some ways the state has tried to keep its storied industry:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Program 1.0: In 2009, in response to other states beginning to offer financial incentives for motion picture production, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the state\u2019s first California Film and Television Production Tax Credit<\/a>. The program allocated $100 million per year to eligible film and TV production companies through 2017.<\/p>\n

Program 2.0: In 2014, lawmakers approved Assembly Bill 1839<\/a>, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law, creating a new version of the Film and Television Production Tax Credit program and more than tripling the credits to $330 million annually through 2020.<\/p>\n

2018 expansion: In 2018, Brown again authorized an extension of the program for another five years, through 2025. Following the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down productions, Gov. Gavin Newsom boosted the credit temporarily to $420 million annually.<\/p>\n

2025 increase: Hollywood was struggling following the \u201cquadruple-whammy\u201d of the COVID-19 pandemic, a writers strike, deadly wildfires and growing production incentives from other states that lured movies out of California. In response, lawmakers increased the yearly credit<\/a> in 2025 to $750 million per year until 2030. Newsom championed the boost, saying the industry was \u201con life support.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, when the film and television production tax credit clashed with an initiative to cap corporate tax breaks, lawmakers carved independent film producers<\/a> out of the groups subject to a new cap.<\/p>\n

In July, Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas<\/a> of Salinas created the \u201cSelect Committee on Growing and Retaining the Creative Economy in California\u201d to, in part, keep film and television production in the state.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2319<\/a> by Burbank Democrat Nick Schultz<\/a> to create a new tax credit for post-production work, including editing and visual effects.<\/p>\n

Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur<\/a>, a Democrat representing Hollywood, said he was delighted a deal was reached to keep Paramount in California, but that the state needs to do more to retain the industry. Zbur is chair of the state\u2019s new Assembly committee focused on keeping film production in California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that other states are realizing what important, family-sustaining jobs these are, they’re competing very aggressively for these jobs,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zbur said the committee will explore new state incentives during its first meeting, which he expects will take place in October in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tCopy HTML<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kate Wolffe, CalMatters This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. A high-profile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,457,47,1694],"class_list":["post-471389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-los-angeles","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}