(The Center Square) – A bill adding a pair of film tax credits in Wisconsin worth up to $10 million while also creating a film office with three full-time employees passed Wisconsin’s Senate Assembly Committee on Ways and Means and could now head to the full Assembly.
The bill would start film tax credits again in Wisconsin after they were previously halted in 2013. Wisconsin is one of four states currently without film tax credits.
The 30% tax credit would apply to income paid to Wisconsin residents up to $250,000 apiece, transferable credits for film-related expenses in the state and credits for acquiring or improving property that wasn’t owned before Dec. 31, 2025.
The bill would cost $199,300 in financial year 2027 and $254,000 the next year to fund three full-time employees in a film office.
The tax credit is co-sponsored by Rep. Dave Armstrong, R-Rice Lake, whose full-time job is the Economic Development Director in Barron County.
Film credits like those larger credits used in Georgia were supported by Armstrong but have been panned by economists as a tax cost that isn’t worth it for taxpayers.
Economist J.C. Bradbury of Georgia’s Kennesaw State University extensively studied Georgia’s larger film credit program, writing in a peer-reviewed paper that the state spent $230 per household on foregone tax revenue because of the initiative, which has cost taxpayers the equivalent of $110,000 per full-time job in the industry without bringing the promised benefits from the program.
The Wisconsin bill received support from the committee but Rep. Nate Gustafson, R-Fox Crossing, said that he is not a “huge fan” of the bill despite voting for it.
“This bill is not quite fully ready for showtime but I think we have enough to have a bigger conversation with our colleagues,” Gustafson said.
