The Tax Payers Union’s recent press release, headlined “Avatar Producers Should Pay Back Taxpayer Subsidies”, lacks fact and accuracy.

They state “Taxpayers have forked out over $140 million in subsidies for the Avatar sequels”, this is a rare moment of accuracy. The NZ taxpayer has indeed forked out that amount ... after the production spent in New Zealand almost five times that amount – or $700 million or almost three quarters of a billion dollars.

And, as we all know but the Tax Payers Union conveniently forgets to mention, if that rebate hadn’t been on offer the chance of our film crews, film industry and country benefitting from that $700 million spend does not happen..

Let’s not get caught up in the fact that the $140 million is not an investment in Avatar, which would indeed come with the opportunity for returns from any profits, and the opportunity to lose money if the film had performed poorly. But the SPG is not an investment. It’s a rebate.

And, from a NZ perspective, it’s money well-spent. It’s not only brought another Oscar to NZ, but it’s reinforced the belief that the world’s best and most awarded VFX work gets done by a company that’s headquartered in Wellington.

That’s stuff no advertising spend can deliver, because you can’t buy an award.

But it’s all about the money for the Tax Payers Union.

The release calls on the government “to explain why the film industry is special enough to receive favourable treatment over other industries” and continues: “Every dollar taxed to fund these subsidies is a dollar that could have been spent improving public services or reducing the tax burden on Kiwis.”

There’s an awful lot wrong there, but let’s just concentrate on the money because basic maths is enough. Per the Olsberg report, every dollar the government spent on the rebate delivered $6.11 of benefit. Let’s say Olsberg’s as bad at maths as the Tax Payer Union, and call that $3. Government has spent $140 million ... which delivered over $400 million of benefit.

The production spent $700 million, almost all of which was generating GST and income tax for government - tax which wouldn’t have happened without that $700 million being spent and well in excess of the $140 million rebate.

So the SPG is, we believe, not a drain on the government’s ability to (re)build infrastructure, or attract intelligent people into teaching, or pay enough anaesthetists to allow doctors to carry out operations.

Without SPG and the productions it helps attract to NZ, there’ll be less money for all of that … and fewer people working and paying tax on their earnings.

That’s why the screen industry is worth the money government puts into SPG. Because it generates profit, something that – oddly – upsets the Tax Payers’ Union.

“In the five years to 2026," the release says, "taxpayers will have paid more than $1 billion to wealthy film production companies, including one owned by Jeff Bezos – the world’s third richest man.”

Take a quick skip through the pure conjecture (until we’re all in 2027, nobody will know just how much the SPG has paid out from 2021 to 2026) … and into the lies. Jeff Bezos does not own a wealthy film production company. He doesn’t.

He does own The Washington Post, but he doesn’t own a film production company, and he doesn’t own Amazon, which owns Prime Video, presumably the production company the Tax Payers Union refers to. Bezos owns 9.73% of the shares in Amazon – so he’s over 90% away from owning it.

After shooting its first season here in NZ, Prime’s Lord of the Rings left and went to the UK, saving the NZ taxpayer more spending on rebates and putting many, many hundreds of Kiwis out of work. That’s a win, by the Tax Payers’ Union rationale.

And they’ll no doubt be even happier to learn that the UK government has just approved an increase in its SPG equivalent scheme to offer rebates of 34-39% - a long way north of NZ’s current 20-25% for inbound productions and a rebate that's likely to make it harder for NZ to attract major productions.

It's a rare treat to see Britain's Conservative government make decisions based on facts rather than ideology. We look forward to the Tax Payers' Union catching the bug.

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