Alaska's 2008-2015 film incentive program failed for documentable, structural reasons. Meanwhile, Oklahoma, Canada, and Georgia have operated successful programs for a combined sixty years. The difference is not political will. It is program design. The structural features that make incentive programs work are well understood and directly applicable to Alaska.
Oklahoma restructured its program in 2021 with a design that directly addresses the failures Alaska experienced.
The credit base is anchored on Oklahoma resident labor. The base rate is 20 percent on qualified Oklahoma spend, with a 10 percent uplift to 30 percent for wages paid to Oklahoma residents, creating a meaningful financial incentive to hire locally rather than importing crew from LA.
Credits are refundable cash, not transferable instruments. There is no secondary market, no discount, and no value leaking to unrelated industries.
Oklahoma also created the Cherokee Nation Film Incentive, which provides an additional 5 percent credit for productions involving Cherokee Nation tribal members, tribal land, or Cherokee-owned businesses. This is the model for Alaska Native Corporation participation.
Canada has operated federal and provincial film incentive programs continuously since 1995. The key structural features are instructive for Alaska.
The federal program provides a 25 percent refundable credit on Canadian labor expenditures only. Non-Canadian labor does not qualify at the federal level. This ensures the credit directly funds Canadian employment.
Provincial programs aggressively incentivize regional distribution. Ontario adds 10 percent for productions shot entirely outside the Greater Toronto Area. British Columbia adds 6 to 12.5 percent for regional and distant locations. These bonuses ensure production activity spreads beyond major cities, which is directly relevant to Alaska where production value exists statewide, not just in Anchorage.
Credits are refundable cash. There is no secondary market.
Provinces co-invest in physical infrastructure and workforce development alongside the credit program. The infrastructure and the incentive arrive together.
Georgia's film tax credit began in 2008, the same year as Alaska's. Georgia's program grew production spending from $890 million in FY 2012 to $4.39 billion in FY 2022. Alaska's program was repealed. The difference is structural design.
An independent economic impact study found that Georgia's program generates $6.30 in economic activity for every $1 of credit, and that more than 92 percent of measured production activity is incremental to the credit. The program is creating activity that would not otherwise exist.
Georgia also built the Georgia Film Academy across 28 institutions in the University System of Georgia, creating a pipeline of trained local crew. They established a mandatory Filmed in Georgia branding program that generates tourism return. And they built an industry coalition governance model that has maintained political support across changes in administration.
Across the three peer programs, six structural features consistently separate success from failure.
1. Credit base anchored on resident labor
The credit must primarily reward hiring local workers, not importing crews from out of state. A meaningful differential between resident and non-resident wage credits, typically 10 to 15 percentage points or more, creates the actual economic incentive.
2. Refundable cash, not transferable instruments
Transferable credits create secondary markets where value leaks to buyers who have nothing to do with production. Refundable cash credits eliminate this entirely.
3. Real-time verification, not back-end CPA review
Receipt verification must happen as expenditures are incurred, not months later during wrap accounting. Real-time verification against business license databases, tax filings, and employment records catches problems before the money is spent, not after.
4. Meaningful Alaska-spend floor
A minimum percentage of qualifying spend must go to in-state residents and verified in-state businesses for any credit to be earned. This prevents the scenario where a production shoots in Alaska but spends 90 percent of its budget on imported crew and gear.
5. Co-investment in workforce and infrastructure
The credit program must fund workforce training alongside production activity. Without a pipeline of trained local crew, the spend will continue to flow to imported labor regardless of the credit structure.
6. Program stability tied to performance
Sunset clauses should be tied to performance benchmarks, not fixed dates. If the program is working, it continues. If it is not meeting benchmarks, it scales back. This protects the state from open-ended fiscal exposure while giving the industry the stability it needs to invest.
There is a factor that program design alone cannot solve. When Alaska's 2008 program launched, the state did not have the in-state production infrastructure to absorb the spend the credit created. Visiting productions could not find an integrated local operator who could staff, equip, and execute their shoots from inside Alaska. So they brought everything from LA, the credit paid for it, and the money left.
That infrastructure now exists. Alaska Production Company provides the complete ground-level production infrastructure for visiting crews: local crew staffing across all departments, equipment sourced in-state, permitting across all jurisdictions, basecamp operations, casting, budgeting and wrap accounting, and full logistical management. We operate as a bonded service producer on AICP-standard bids.
The policy and the infrastructure have to arrive together. If a credit program passes without the infrastructure, the money leaves the state again. If the infrastructure matures without the credit program, it runs at a fraction of its potential volume. Both need to happen in the same window.
For the current status of the bill in front of the legislature, see our page on HB 113. For the full history of why the last program failed, see Why Alaska's Film Incentive Program Failed.
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