Broadway’s pandemic-era tax credit is due for its final curtain call – but instead Gov. Kathy Hochul is calling for the show to go on, with even more taxpayer funding in the years ahead.
Implemented in 2021 under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and intended to temporarily help the Great White Way weather Covid’s storms, the New York City musical and theatrical production tax credit was included in Hochul’s latest executive budget, released Tuesday, with a proposed extension through 2027 and a jump in its allocation from $300 million to $400 million over the next two years.
But in 2025, with Broadway having rebounded to 84% of prepandemic revenue totals, the question is why Hochul wants to continue to hand over taxpayer dollars to an industry that does not seem to need them. The Legislature should not let the tax credit continue.
As reporter Nick Garber detailed recently, if approved by the Legislature, this would be the third time the credit, which started as a $100 million allocation to struggling Broadway productions and was set to expire in 2023, has been extended or expanded. The benefit allows large Broadway shows to receive as much as $3 million in annual subsidies, and nearly two dozen shows received the maximum amount last year – including wildly successful productions like “The Lion King.”
In 2023 a state-commissioned report found that the credit generated just 23 cents for every dollar New York invested, and auditors noted that the program tends to give the most funds to large shows without accounting for whether they really need the help.
Broadway is of course a major thread in the fabric of the city, but New York also has much more pressing issues to attend to. The $400 million might be better used to pay officers assigned to keep the subway safe, fund supportive housing and care for homeless New Yorkers experiencing mental health issues, and feed the 1 in 4 children in New York City who are experiencing food insecurity, according to City Harvest. Making sure the giraffes in “The Lion King” continue to have top-of-the-line pelts seems like the least of our worries.
To be sure, the governor’s concern that productions that can’t afford to get off the ground in New York City will choose other locations, like London, is valid. But one of the beautiful things about Broadway is its survival-of-the-fittest atmosphere. The people largely decide which shows stay and which ones go, casting their vote through ticket sales.
Crain’s has flagged “zombie” tax abatements in the past and also noted that the state’s film tax credit, seemingly meant to ensure “Law & Order” stays on the air for decades to come, has largely been a dud in terms of generating revenue for New York’s coffers. The Legislature should think twice before allowing the state to give more dollars to Broadway, especially to shows that don’t in fact need them.
