Progressive Hollywood Is the Loser Under Trump Tax Cut

AGENDA 21 RADIO

CHRISS STREET, NEWPORT BEACH, CA

Progressive Hollywood studio moguls and A-lister stars with fabulous incomes are still looking like the losers under Trump’s Tax Cut.

Hollywood as measured by the Broadcasting & Entertainment Stock Index was the number one winner under Democrat President Obama, rising 555 percent over his 8 years in office. But despite U.S. stock market averages spiking up by over +34 percent since Republican President Trump took office in January 2017, the Broadcasting & Entertainment Stock Index is one of almost the worst performer, down over -7 percent.

President Trump has described the $1.5 trillion “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” as having brought real, tangible benefits to over 4 million American families including over 430 companies announcing pay raises, bonuses, or 401(k) hikes.

Bloomberg recently reported it seemed strange that Hollywood A-list celebrities, producers and film financiers who would seem to be “The Big Winners Under Trump’s Tax Cuts, Are His Loudest Critics. But Hollywood moguls and A-listers have been working their politically magic for decades to make sure that they do not have to pay the taxes to fund their social-justice initiatives.

Political campaign contributions from TV, movie and music interests steadily rose from just $6.3 million in 1990 to an all-time record high of $84.6 million in 2016, with a record 84 percent going to Democrats. Industry “soft money” contributions that predominantly go to the Democrats have sky-rocketed from just $17,000 in 2008, to $30,034,503 in 2016 as Hollywood went all-in for to expand its progressive agenda.

The Hollywood Reporter trumpeted “Tinsel Town” in 2012 generated “$143 billion in total wages supported by film and television,” but only generated $15.6 billion in U.S. federal and state taxes. Despite the 35.9 percent combined federal and state tax rate, Hollywood paid a 10.9 percent combined tax rate. That was less than the 15 percent federal tax rate for a worker making between $8,700 to $35,350 a year.

Hollywood’s biggest tax shelter vehicle has been the rise of globalism, with box office revenues flipping for the “big six Hollywood studios” from 65 percent domestic and 35 percent foreign in 1990, to 65 percent foreign and just 35 percent domestic by 2012.

Hollywood set up off-shore subsidiaries on each of its production to defer U.S. taxes on foreign earnings indefinitely. If at least 50 percent of the total wages paid in the U.S. to produce a movie or TV show, the IRS allows the first 9 percent of foreign profit to be brought back to the U.S. tax free. If the production began in 2013, 100 percent of the first $15 million in costs for any movie or TV show is federally tax deductible.

After feasting on the above tax shelter benefits, if the studios or A-lister star wants to bring more cash back to the U.S., the next $6 million of profit could be run through a “Domestic International Sales Corporation” to slash the effective federal and state tax rate to less than 20 percent, or all other foreign profit could be dividend back to the U.S. at a maximum combined tax rate of less than 25 percent.

With just one month before the 2018 primaries, political contributions from TV, movie and music interests are only $17.2 million, versus $84.6 million in 2016 and $30 million in 2014. Democrats still dominate in Hollywood, but the percentage of Republican campaign donations have jumped from 16 percent two years ago to 25 percent this year.

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