The ballot initiative to raise property taxes to pay for poverty programs is starting to report donations from influential Hollywood players.
Now totaling more than a million dollars in the campaign fund, over the last few days the campaign committee for Making Poverty History has reported large donations from Haim Saban, media entrepreneur who produced TV’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and X-Men movies, Frank Marshall, long time producer with the Kennedy/Marshall Company known for Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Kathleen McGrath, Chief Strategy Officer of Bad Robot Productions, which co-produced the new Star Wars movie.
The tax initiative proposal would increase property taxes on residences and businesses valued on the tax rolls at $3 million and more. That should hit a lot of Hollywood types at home, but especially would hit the studios, nearly doubling their property taxes.
That would affect movie costs — even after taxpayers supported the film industry by going along with increased tax credits when movies are made in the state. By the way, of the eight Oscar nominated movies for best picture, none were filmed in California.
The award nomination diversity issue may not be the only challenge for Hollywood if many of Hollywood’s leading names want to climb aboard an effort to alter Prop 13.