Tax shelter: Producers join forces with ING in counter-attack
While over €35m has been raised since tax shelter legislation was passed, producers have often expressed their concerns, regretting that this money would have been better spent assisting the Belgian film industry and its talents.
At the centre of debate are the products offered by intermediary agencies, which, apart from representing a loss of significant capital, have led to the system’s being based on the profitability of funding to the detriment of the audiovisual sector.
To work independently of the intermediary agencies, some outfits, such as Les Films du Fleuve and Versus Production have joined forces to create their own intermediary agency, Inver Invest.
Others are looking for their own investors. Driven by the two producers’ unions – headed by Patrick Quinet for the francophones (Artémis Productions) and Peter Bouckaert on the Flemish side (MMG NV) – Belgian bank ING are launching Tax Shelter Partners, the first banking product in the field, expected to be up and running in September 2007.
It is the “first financial product created by producers in partnership with a bank,” said Brouckaert while Quinet highlighted the importance of “a tool required to give a breath of fresh air to the Belgian audiovisual industry and to avoid by-products”.
Tax Shelter Partners, a co-operative company made up of ING representatives and members of the audiovisual sectors, will therefore be a middle-man between investors and producers and in proposing this new banking product to its clients, ING Belgium will also be an operator, guaranteeing loans and other funding and allowing to cut all sorts of losses resulting from financial transactions.
For professionals it is a relief, as they will no longer lose the rights to their films and can continue, non-exclusively, to ask for funding from other investors. Especially, and this is without doubt the most important point of this initiative, ING Belgium and Tax Shelter Partners will have to respect a charter of good practice, which mandates a selection process that follows objective and non-artistic criteria, the meeting of a certain number of conditions in order to benefit from the system, the reduction of financial friction and transparency of operations.
Everyone is to be given a chance, regardless of the viability or profitability of the project, whether it is an arthouse film or a commercial film.
(Translated from French)
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