Haltickling
2nd Level Green Feather
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2001
- Messages
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In a political TV report on German TV right now, I learned some astonishing facts about funding Hollywood movies like LOTR, The Gangs of New York, Terminator, and others: Considerable parts of these movies are financed by German taxpayers!
The problem: Due to a gap in German tax legislation, big money Germans can use their investments in the movie industry to gain huge tax deductions, reducing their overall taxes to minimum. This law was designed to help the stagnating German movie industry, but by some mistake it doesn't exclude overseas productions. A strange mistake, because the whole model was invented by a German bank where the state has a majority (along with several very influential politicians!).
Meanwhile, the avoided taxes of rich people need to be paid for elsewhere, and guess by whom: the average German taxpayer. And meanwhile, US producers can fill their wallets to the brim. Ironically, Hollywood calls those German investments "stupid German money"!
The problem: Due to a gap in German tax legislation, big money Germans can use their investments in the movie industry to gain huge tax deductions, reducing their overall taxes to minimum. This law was designed to help the stagnating German movie industry, but by some mistake it doesn't exclude overseas productions. A strange mistake, because the whole model was invented by a German bank where the state has a majority (along with several very influential politicians!).
Meanwhile, the avoided taxes of rich people need to be paid for elsewhere, and guess by whom: the average German taxpayer. And meanwhile, US producers can fill their wallets to the brim. Ironically, Hollywood calls those German investments "stupid German money"!
