Screen credits a taxing topic for Greater Lynn

LYNN – Lynn residents may recall the downtown excitement caused by the filming of the Bruce Willis sci-fi thriller “Surrogates” in 2008 and the ruckus that ensued at the city golf course when Robert De Niro walked off the set of the Mel Gibson movie “Edge of Darkness” in 2009.For the past decade, movie stars and big-name directors have been a steady presence on the North Shore, from Leonardo DiCaprio traipsing across the rocks of Nahant in “Shutter Island” to George Clooney taking the helm of an ill-fated Gloucester lobster boat in “The Perfect Storm.”Film production companies are drawn to Massachusetts by a lucrative tax credit ? up to 25 percent of payroll and production costs ? an arrangement most government officials and community leaders claim is healthy for the economy. But reports by the state Department of Revenue (DOR) suggest otherwise.The report for 2008 indicated that television and movie producers spent a total of $676 million shooting movies in Massachusetts during the three previous years.According to the DOR, those productions generated 3,177 full-time equivalent jobs and spent $426 million on the wages of 1,876 people who worked directly on films. The downside emerged when the DOR reported that 82 percent of those wages went to out-of-state residents, and that $177 million of those salaries was paid to only 37 out-of-state actors, directors and producers.The DOR has not yet released its report for 2009 that analyzes the financial impact of the state’s film tax credit, despite the fact that 2010 is waning.”It looks like the governor isn’t going to release that report until after the November election,” said Bruce Mohl, editor of CommonWealth Magazine, which highlighted the DOR reports in its October issue story on the state’s film industry.Mohl said the tax credit has not surfaced as a hot election issue.Gov. Deval Patrick’s attempts to cut the tax credit emerged as a proposal that would have capped at $2 million the amount of a star’s salary that would qualify for the film tax credit.”My guess is that sent a chill to all these movie producers planning a year or two in advance,” Mohl said.Mohl noted that the governor vetoed his own proposed cap after receiving complaints from the producers of the Tom Cruise movie “Knight and Day,” which was preparing to shoot in Massachusetts at the time.Patrick also proposed capping the overall cost of the tax credit at $50 million for each of the next two years, down from $125 million, but it did not find support in the Legislature.”The governor initially was one of the film tax credit’s biggest boosters, but as state revenues have become scarce, he has tried to minimize the amount of money flowing out of state coffers to movie producers,” said Mohl. “Most tax credits reduce what a taxpayer owes, but the film tax credit operates more like a grant in that the credit can be turned into cash by selling it back to the state or to a third party.”Over the past four years, 38 major motion pictures have been shot in the Bay State, according to Nick Paleologos, executive director of the Massachusetts Film Office.”When Hollywood comes here and uses our city to shoot a film, it gives a short-term boost to the local economy, but there are other benefits as well,” said James Cowdell, executive director of the Lynn Economic Development and Industrial Corp. “It brings people into the city in a good light. Bruce Willis coming to Lynn and shooting on Andrew Street is a good thing for the city.”State Rep. Robert Fennell, a Lynn Democrat and owner of the Capitol Diner on Union Street, said the overall financial impact of the movie-making business may have boosted the state’s gross revenues, but did little to fuel the local economy.”It was somewhat of an inconvenience to the small businesses,” he said. “The motorcycle chase scenes in the Bruce Willis movie shut down parts of Munroe, Market and Andrew streets for a couple of days. The merchants were not given a lot of notice. The film crews just