◼ As payroll companies struggle to predict the impact of new laws on movie and TV shoots, one insider says the act "wasn't written with this industry in mind." - The Hollywood Reporter
One of the unintended consequences, say some industry insiders, is that it could lead to productions running to foreign countries, given that ACA doesn't apply to U.S. citizens working abroad. Some also say the number of production days in the U.S. are likely to be cut due to ACA because there's a 90-day waiting period before productions must either pay a penalty or offer health insurance to full-time workers. That rule provides big incentives for a production to wrap in less than three months. While big-budget movies and season-long TV shows might not have such a luxury, smaller films or TV pilots could easily rush their schedules to make sure they come in at under 90 days....
Payroll can represent as much as 45 percent of a production's cost, and payroll-services companies are still crunching the numbers to figure out how much ACA could add to the budget of a typical production. While the administrative costs might rise a bit for the payroll companies, the costs of extra health coverage or penalties fall to the production companies. Nonunion productions might be hit hardest because workers aren't already covered, but even union shoots typically employ many nonunion workers who might need health coverage under ACA....
"Do I expect the cost of doing business to go up? Yes, I do," says Mike Rose, CEO of Ease Entertainment Services.
