Montana lawmakers hear wide-ranging support and opposition for expanding film tax credit

Representative Keri Seekins Crow, sponsor of House Bill 200, told the House Taxation Committee the bill would expand Montana’s film tax credit to help create jobs, attract production infrastructure and keep creative workers in-state. With the sponsor’s proposed amendment, the bill would lower an initially proposed cap from $350 million to $250 million, lower the qualifying production budget threshold from $350,000 to $50,000, add documentary and reality television to eligible production types, and extend the statute’s sunset (the sponsor stated a date garbled in the transcript; the intent reported in testimony was to extend the sunset beyond 2029, to 2035).

The bill drew lengthy proponent testimony from business and industry groups and individual producers. Charles Robison of the Montana Chamber of Commerce described a television season that spent over $72 million in Montana and employed 116 local workers, and Dan Brooks of the Billings Chamber cited a 2022 interim report tracking dozens of productions and millions in…