BECTU mounts lobby on film tax

BECTU is asking its members to urge their MPs to lobby for improvements in a new tax regime for film-makers.

Freelance members have been sent a briefing pack, including postcards that can be sent to their parliamentary representatives.

The initiative comes as the government begins to consider responses from industry bodies on two public consultations run by the Treasury and Department for Culture, Media, and Sport.

Existing tax breaks for film-makers in the UK, known by their legal tags "Section 42" and "Section 48" are due to expire in 2006, and the consultations were run as a prelude to new rules being drafted.

BECTU has welcomed the government's intention to replace S.42 and S.48, but is concerned that the tax regulations currently proposed for the industry could damage the employment prospects of British crews.

To qualify for tax breaks, films will have to pass a test which determines whether they are "culturally British", and the union is worried that big-budget US movies, which provide significant levels of work for BECTU members, might be excluded.

Typically on this kind of production, a number of craft heads would be brought in from the US, with the union's approval, but all other crew would be locally-based freelancers from the UK.

These films could also lose out if the government goes ahead with a proposal to limit tax deductions to 25% for projects with a budget over £20 million. Below that threshold the tax relief is 50%.

BECTU is also calling for more emphasis to be put on location shooting in the UK as a test of a film's British content, as well as a minimum 70% quota for UK and EU crew.

Proposed criteria to qualify for tax breaks could, fears the union, lead to "cherry picking" of UK facilities, where for example a production could claim tax relief solely on the basis that post-production, but not the principal photography, had been done in the UK.

The union has made detailed submissions to the Treasury and DCMS on the tax relief proposals for the film industry (see box on right), and members are being asked to target their lobbying efforts on MPs who are either on the Select Committee for Culture, or represent constituencies where the film industry is present.