Georgia's audit of their film incentive program is scathing, even by film audit standards. A thread based on a quick read. There is so much here.
Georgia evaluated their film incentive program some time ago, and I made fun of some of the silliness in this evaluation.
The audit looks at if the economic development agency's oversight of the program. audits.ga.gov/rsaAudits/down…
The audit looks at if the economic development agency's oversight of the program. audits.ga.gov/rsaAudits/down…
The conclusion of the audit of Georgia's film incentives is in the title. It is bad. There is almost too much to comment on here. 
Film incentives are a racket where productions are often given a credit as a % of costs, as opposed to per job. This means productions want to inflate costs are assign costs in state that are actually out of state.
This is a tax credit, but most of these companies don't have significant tax liabilities in Georgia. So they resell these tax credits.
If you are interested in these secondary market in tax credits. See this FOIA request page. Companies like Kohl's buy up tons of these credits. Louisiana has good data on this. muckrock.com/foi/list/?proj…
Georgia has rejected public records requests on these sales of their film incentives. muckrock.com/foi/georgia-23…
This means that companies want to maximize their costs in Georgia. That includes filming both in-state and out of state, but claiming the credit for in-state. One example from the audit:
Film companies often engage in internal transactions, allowing companies to essentially "transfer price" expenses into Georgia.
There are too many weaknesses in the documentation and oversight to point out here. But one example is allowing "petty cash" expenses of $154,000 to be part of the credit.
The agency didn't document details and in many cases just relied on "trust." In this case they shouldn't have trusted the company.
There are statutory limits to this program. Like how much a company can receive. But the audit found that the firms used subsidiaries to get around these limits. Companies are supposed to be up to date on the GA taxes, but the agency has no access to this data.
Even the few companies (12%) that are audited are voluntary audits. They want to be audited to sell the credits. And these audits don't use verified data.
And the auditor even drops a "fraud" hint.
If you are reading and this is too much to absorb, here is a good summary. The agency doesn't even have the basic documents necessary to oversee this program.
There are lots of scathing audits of economic development incentive programs including a devastating one in New Jersey. But this is one of the most damning ones I have been. This agency doesn't have the capacity or will to monitor this program.
