Update: $3.7 billion in new taxpayer handouts to corporations in 2026 state budget

Governor Hochul and the Legislature are boosting New York’s Film/TV, Broadway, Excelsior, and other reimbursable tax credit programs by at least $3.7 billion. Reimbursable tax credits are direct payments from the state to film producers and others reimbursing them for a chunk of their expenses – for instance, 30% of the cost of making a movie in New York. 

Outsiders may find it fiscally irresponsible that the state is increasing corporate handouts in the face of an estimated $15 billion or more in Trump administration cuts to the roughly $90 billion in annual federal aid to New York. But there is a political logic to increasing subsidies in Albany, where state elected leaders value the public validation and big contributions from corporate interests and their labor allies, and the press and voters are usually so distracted by Trump administration antics that they can’t be bothered to focus on something as small-bore and abstruse as billions in corporate subsidies.

The Governor and Legislature’s budgets all include these new taxpayer payments to corporations:

• $2.6 billion in new film/TV reimbursable tax credits, including a new tax credit for “independent” films totaling $1.2 billion. This is a truly unconscionable waste of public funds. The state’s own study found that state taxpayers lose at least 70 cents on every dollar spent on Film/TV subsidies. The Film/TV production subsidy costs taxpayers $75,000 per job per year and produces zero social benefit (the public pays a worker to build a bridge and the public gets a bridge. Pay them to make a movie and the public gets what?).
• $1 billion (at least) in new Excelsior reimbursable tax credits (the Governor proposed $2 billion). This useless subsidy is purported to encourage employers to create and retain jobs in New York despite no evidence that it is effective and lots of evidence that it is not. Economist and job location expert Tim Bartik has collated data from dozens of studies that show subsidies like Excelsior only affect where jobs are somewhere between 2% and 25% of the time.
• New $100 million in Broadway reimbursable tax credits as program expands from $300m to $400m total from 2021 to 2028 despite the same state study finding that New York loses 77 cents on each dollar spent on the theater subsidy.