Colombia. The tax reform project that the Colombian government presented for discussion in Congress has generated alert and concern within the film industry, because it proposes a change in the way of financing the sector.
The project proposes a change in Laws 814 of 2003 and 1556 of 2012, which created the Fund for Film Development, FDC, and have been fundamental for the progress that the country has had in the audiovisual industry during the last years, thanks to the promotion of private investment and incentives.
The film producer Jaime Guerrero, co-founder of the production company Rara Colectivo Audiovisual and the Association of Producers of Medellín and Antioquia, and who is also part of the National Audiovisual Assembly, told TVyVideo that there are two problems that the sector would have if the project is approved as it is today.
The first is that it proposes a change in the way the Film Development Fund is financed. Today it is done through a tax on the box office of movie theaters, resources that are administered by Proimágenes in order to promote the country's film industry. The Government proposes that the financing of this fund be by State resources, guaranteeing a budget of 33 billion Colombian pesos per year, income that the fund had before the pandemic.
Although during the last year the FDC has been affected with a reduction in resources due to the closure of movie theaters due to the pandemic, for Jaime Guerrero that is the excuse of the Government in its proposal for modification, which would leave at the mercy of the government of the day the financing and the allocation of resources for the sector. In addition, it is not clear what would happen to the resources that are collected today by concept of the box office.
"If the government wants to provide resources to finance the audiovisual industry, it can do so without having to modify the current laws. Law 814 allows you to do so. There are no certainties of how the fund would work and we are concerned that it could become a focus of corruption and censorship," he said.
Secondly, it ends with the Audiovisual Investment Certificates, CINA. Through these certificates, international audiovisual production has been promoted in the Colombian territory, giving a consideration of 40% of the value of the expenses made in the country for cinematographic services and 20% of the value of the expenses in hospitality, food and transport to the companies that carry out the productions in the Colombian territory, all made through Colombian production companies.
Jaime Guerrero and other spokesmen for the sector in Colombia have pointed out that, if the Government's project is approved as it is today, it would end two decades of strengthening audiovisual production, which have allowed to have internationally outstanding productions and would destroy thousands of jobs generated by the audiovisual production chain.
The alarms of the sector are on and in social networks the hashtags #SOScinecolombiano #nuestrasleyesdecineseprotegen and #elcinecolombianonoentraenlareforma through which they seek to publicize the problems that the sector would have with this project are trending.
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