Alabama Hopes to Lure Hollywood by Taxing Porn Valley

MONTGOMERY, AL — What red-blooded American hasn’t wondered why the film industry chose to settle in the sunny and socially tolerant city of Los Angeles in the state of California when perfectly good locations in other states are available? Apparently the Alabama legislature has wondered the same thing and is hoping to lure the mainstream film industry into its enlightened borders – by taxing all things pornographic or explicitly sexual.Senate Bill 404, the Entertainment Industry Incentive Act of 2008, doesn’t really hope to provide incentives for all forms of legal entertainment within the state of Alabama. But it does hope to make its pastures appear greener to those currently in Hollywood but searching for somewhere different.

According to Rep. Richard Lindsey (D-Centre) and the Alabama Education Association, the bill’s best chance of survival hinges on a bill levying a 30-percent tax on the sale of all adult videos shown via cable, all sex toys sold within the state, all adult videos sold or rented within its shops, and all professional phone sex conversations.

This is news to Rep. Tom Butler (D-Madison), who co-sponsored SB404 but insisted upon the bill’s approval within the Senate Finance and Taxation and Education Committee that he “will know more about it” soon.

Not everyone agrees that linking a porn tax with a film industry incentive is a good idea. House committee member and state Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin (R-Pelham), for instance, thinks “that’s a sure death” for SB404.

All AEA executive secretary Paul Hubbert knows is that the money spent to lure big cameras into Alabama is going to take away money for teaching students how to read and write. Therefore, dipping into the pockets of those who invest in their sexuality is the logical conclusion. “The revenue generated by adult entertainment would offset the loss in first few years in the incentive tax. People who buy Penthouse and people who buy Playboy magazine will pay the tax.”

Unfortunately for Hubbert, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Senate Bill 404 does not include adult magazines – only things consumers can watch, use on their bodies, or discuss via telephone with paid sex professionals.

Nonetheless, Hubbert insists that Sen. Jack William’s (D-Russelville) little-known bill to tax phone sex calls, adult novelties, and visual pornography is the solution to the problem of money potentially lost due to luring film makers into the state.

Williams had hoped to see revenue from his “sin tax” fund low-income senior citizen services and property-tax relief.

Butler is confused about the entire lost tax revenue discussion, given that he contends that the state can’t lose what it doesn’t have. “Right now, we’re not doing film business because we don’t have incentives,” he points out.

Senate Bill 404 specifically authorizes an income tax credit equal to 25-percent of production costs, plus 35-percent of payroll to all non-Alabama citizens but including all benefits paid to residents of the state during film production. Companies that spent between $50,000 and $10 million in production costs would be eligible for the credits and the legislature could grant lodging and sales tax exemptions to those that spend more than $150,000 within the state.

Alabama film students testified that they currently must leave the state in order to find work – even when films such as Forrest Gump, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Sweet Home Alabama are set in their own state … but shot elsewhere.

“If you pass this, the next day you’ll have Hollywood calling,” insists Birmingham producer and former MTV VJ, Alan Hunter, whose company produced the 2007 and 2002 films Pop Skull and Johnny Flynton within Alabama.