DOCUMENTARY MAKERS TO TAX COURT: WE’RE IN IT FOR THE MONEY

Several groups of documentary filmmakers have joined in a friend-of-the-court filing urging the United States Tax Court to rule that producing documentaries is a commercial activity, that is, intended to make money, and not a noncommercial exercise intending merely to “educate and expose” (as the court held in a tax case last March). In a report about the filing, the New York Times observed today (Tuesday), “The stakes are enormous: if documentary-making were generally construed to be more to persuade than to profit, the deductibility of expenses incurred in the making of such films would come into question.” The groups themselves said in a statement that a ruling that documentary filmmakers are not permitted to deduct their business expenses “would have a chilling effect on the documentary filmmaking industry.”