Film Tax Credit Financing – Working Capital for Canadian Productions

Canadian film tax credit financing is an important aspect of financing for film, multimedia and gaming industry in Canada. The Canadian federal and provincial governments seem to be maintaining, if not increasing tax credits to the industry.

Whether firms have U.S. or Canadian origins Canadian tax credit financing is a very valuable source of capital for entertainment content that is produced in Canada.

The overall stable financial environment in Canada compared with other sovereign locations help to promote both productions and the resultant tax credit schemes as sponsored by federal and provincial governments.

The bottom line is that tax credits from an overall perspective are both improving and increasing in the Canadian environment.

The Canadian tax credit environment is somewhat different from U.S. and other European countries which focus on pre-production, future values of the production, and the ancillary revenues associated with DVC, cable, television, etc.

Therefore in Canada tax credit film financing is not necessarily related to the projects ability to repay any lender with future cash flows generated from success of the project.

In Canada, based on the current tax credit structure of federal and provincial governments the financing of tax credit sis not dependant on commercial success. Naturally the ability to predict ‘commercial success ‘is in fact impossible, as evidenced by thousands of productions in entertainment history.

So how do Canadian productions get assistance with working capital and cash for for productions that have uncertainty of success?

The answer is simply to finance film, multimedia, digital and gaming tax credits via an independent third party, which in Canada’s case is either a Chartered bank or and independent finance firm .
All productions in Canada, in each of our aforementioned entertainment categories are financing in a limited number of ways - Owner equity, debt, financing tax credits, and actual government grants.
The whole area of why government is involved in such an area is for another discussion, but clearly appears to be because of the potential for employment.

If a production is able to obtain ‘Gap financing ‘then that is an alternative to tax credit financing. Simply explain Gap financing is a cash flow or mezzanine loan on territories and rights.
Film tax credit financing in Canada is a very valuable cash flow and working capital component of the industry. The financing is very ‘boutique’ in nature, with a limited number of players. We recommend you discuss or consult your film tax credit financing needs with an experienced advisor in this area.