Martin wants removal of tax-incentive cap

SANTA FE, New Mexico — Author and film producer George R. R. Martin has waded into the politics of movie-industry tax breaks while endorsing a prominent Democratic candidate for governor of New Mexico.

Martin, a longtime Santa Fe resident and author of the fantasy novels behind the Game of Thrones television series, called for the raising or elimination of New Mexico’s $50-million US annual limit on the state’s tax incentive for film production.

At an hour-long forum about New Mexico’s film industry, Martin sat alongside Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democratic candidate for governor next year.

This week, Lujan Grisham announced she would seek to expand tax incentives for film and television production and look for ways to encourage the construction of new production studio space.

Martin described a cutthroat competitive environment in the film industry, and his own budding efforts to attract more movie production to Santa Fe by offering low-cost office space at a building provided to him posthumously by an estate.

Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen currently are using the building through Martin’s nonprofit Stagecoach Foundation.

“We’re in competition with Texas and Arizona and Utah,” Martin said. “How do we compete? Obviously the incentives are a big part of it. We have to get rid of this state tax incentive cap.”

Martin quipped that he liked caps, “but only on my head.” He said limiting the tax credit is “like saying: ‘We have enough jobs, we don’t need any more jobs. We’re going to cap the number of jobs?”’

This year, a bill to raise the annual limit on the film tax credit and link future annual increase to inflation failed to win approval in the Democratic-led legislature.