Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Tax Me If You Can
WSJ ^ | 3/14/2009

Posted on 03/15/2009 4:49:45 AM PDT by shove_it

We're constantly told that taxes don't matter to business and investors, but listen to that noted supply-side economist, Alec Baldwin. The actor recently rebuked New York Governor David Paterson for threatening to try to help close the state's $7 billion budget deficit by canceling a 35% tax credit for films shot in the Big Apple.

"I'm telling you right now," Mr. Baldwin declared, "if these tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse, and television is going to collapse and it's all going to go to California." Well, well. Apparently taxes do matter, at least when it comes to filming "30 Rock" in Manhattan.

Believe it or not, Mr. Baldwin's views are shared across the movie industry, which is pleading in state capitals across the country for most-favored-tax status. Hollywood productions are highly mobile and can film just about anywhere. So they have taken to shopping around the country -- and the world -- for the most lucrative tax avoidance deal.

[...]

New York City can survive without Alec Baldwin and "30 Rock," but it can't function without the thousands of small businesses that pay taxes without the benefit of lobbyists and loopholes.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: alecbaldwin; california; movies; newyork; taxes; television
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last
Hypocracy, thy name is Baldwin.
1 posted on 03/15/2009 4:49:45 AM PDT by shove_it
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: shove_it

Time for a worldwide windfall profits tax on Baldwin and Hollywood!


2 posted on 03/15/2009 4:51:27 AM PDT by rabscuttle385 ("If this be treason, then make the most of it!" —Patrick Henry)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

Isn’t he supposed to be in France?


3 posted on 03/15/2009 5:02:35 AM PDT by Ronin (Just when you're winning the rat race -- along come faster rats....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

“television is going to collapse and it’s all going to go to California”-ha,ha, HA, HA-this idiot is a riot.


4 posted on 03/15/2009 5:13:52 AM PDT by mrmargaritaville
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

“television is going to collapse and it’s all going to go to California”-ha,ha, HA, HA-this idiot is a riot.


5 posted on 03/15/2009 5:13:53 AM PDT by mrmargaritaville
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

Tax breaks have brought film makers to Michigan. Too bad the morons in Lansing are too stupid to apply those same principles to real industry.


6 posted on 03/15/2009 5:19:14 AM PDT by cripplecreek (The poor bastards have us surrounded.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ronin
Isn’t he supposed to be in France?

I think his threats to move were only valid back when:

1. the masses might actually have noticed his absence from the acting scene
2. he would have only needed to buy one ticket to be seated in an airliner
3. TCM found a way for him to pay the utility bills by making fatuous introductory remarks before showing truly superior (in other words, non-Alec Baldwin) films.

Mr. niteowl77

7 posted on 03/15/2009 5:27:43 AM PDT by niteowl77 (You wanted him, and now you have got him. I say, "Good day to you," America.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: niteowl77

I think I now understand some of the reasons the media industry is so subservient to government. I suspect if government was’nt so hard on the rest of its “citizens/taxpayers” ...oops peons/peasants, they’d be equally as more supportive......


8 posted on 03/15/2009 5:30:51 AM PDT by mo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

Wasn’t he one of those who didn’t think he paid enough in taxes????


9 posted on 03/15/2009 5:43:40 AM PDT by Adder (Proudly ignoring Zero's political stylings since 1-20-09!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

What is Alec Baldwin still doing in the United States?? Wasn’t he moving to Kenya or somewhere, if George Bush won? Maybe he an visit Obama’s birthplace there.


10 posted on 03/15/2009 5:52:53 AM PDT by 2harddrive (...House a TOTAL Loss.....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2harddrive

Alec Baldwin is really a brain-eating alien. He said so himself. I saw it on TV, so it must be true.


11 posted on 03/15/2009 5:56:45 AM PDT by reformedliberal (N0)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: rabscuttle385

We make films demonizing capitalists, but if you copy them we will put you in jail because it affects our profits.
Pick a side. You can’t keep talking communist and expect it to never reach you. On the other hand that has been the whole premise of the Democratic Party for over seventy-years.


12 posted on 03/15/2009 5:56:59 AM PDT by Steamburg ( Your wallet speaks the only language most politicians understand.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: reformedliberal
Alec Baldwin is really a brain-eating alien. He said so himself. I saw it on TV, so it must be true.

:-) ya beat me to it.

(actually hulu is pretty cool)

13 posted on 03/15/2009 6:04:52 AM PDT by Condor51 (The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: shove_it
Hey, what's the big deal? Increased costs of doing business, and taxes is one of them, are either just "eaten" by the investors, who are bunch of greedy, no good, rich pigs, or the increased costs are passed on to the greedy, no good bourgeois consumers. They'll pay for it. They'll have to. And if they don't want to pay, we'll make them.

"Our culture has sunk into a bog of materialism. Men have lost all spiritual values in their pursuit of material production and technological trickery...so we ought to place a limit on their material greed. It is disgraceful that artists are treated as peddlers. What people want to read (or see), is irrelevant. There should be a law limiting the sale of any book to ten thousand copies…If people were forbidden to buy a million copies of the same piece of trash, they would be forced to buy better books"

Balph Eubank

14 posted on 03/15/2009 6:13:51 AM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

Well well...The shoe is on the other foot now. I wish it was up his.... Okay, sorry


15 posted on 03/15/2009 6:22:30 AM PDT by patriot preacher (To be a good American Citizen and a Christian IS NOT a contradiction. (www.mygration.blogspot.com))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MarkL

Thanks for the ‘Balpf Alert’.


16 posted on 03/15/2009 6:27:13 AM PDT by shove_it (and have a nice day)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: shove_it
"I'm telling you right now," Mr. Baldwin declared, "if these tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse, and television is going to collapse and it's all going to go to California." Well, well. Apparently taxes do matter, at least when it comes to filming "30 Rock" in Manhattan.

Actually, it'll go to Canada and Baltimore. The Taxinator in California will do his part for their deficit, and the unions are already forcing the film industry our of the country.

Baltimore already has a film industry, but the local governments aren't going to kill that goose quite yet.

17 posted on 03/15/2009 6:32:47 AM PDT by Smedley (It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

Alwic Balwin opposing taxes.

What is the world coming to?

I love it when liberalism bites its proponents in the ass.


18 posted on 03/15/2009 6:41:23 AM PDT by CriticalJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

Alec Baldwin, the new Leona Helmsley. taxes are only for the little people.


19 posted on 03/15/2009 6:42:34 AM PDT by CORedneck
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shove_it

Alec, come on now, paying your fair share is patriotic, you ‘thoughtless little pig’. “You have insulted me for the last time.”


20 posted on 03/15/2009 6:59:33 AM PDT by LowCountryJoe (Do class-warfare and disdain of laissez-faire have their places in today's GOP?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson