Italian Tax Incentives for Film Industry : The Impact on the Domestic Sector and on the State

The national approach to public funding of the film industry has been subject to a shift in recent years, at an international level, moving from a grant and subsidy scheme towards more automatic form of supports, including tax incentives. The paper aims at analysing the impact of the new tax credit measures for the Italian film industry, introduced in 2008, within the framework of the 2007 financial law, and in force since the third quarter of 2009. The impact is evaluated on both the domestic film production companies and on the State accounts level. The measure of tax credit for film with cultural requirements provides the film production company with the possibility of offsetting its tax debt (national and regional income tax, VAT, social contribution and costs) during the production, within a cap of 15% of total eligible costs. Starting from the data collected and processed by the Ministry of Culture since the beginning of the implementation phase, the paper aims at demonstrating the positive balance for the State determined by the increase of private investments on film with cultural requirements and, consequently, of the induced direct and indirect tax return. A brief description of the measure will be followed by a comparison of the incremental value produced by the film sector throughout the year following the enforcement of the tax credit measures