People (including the journalists who wrote this article and the ones it links to) seem to misunderstand how "tax write-offs" work. For example, the article lin

People (including the journalists who wrote this article and the ones it links to) seem to misunderstand how "tax write-offs" work. For example, the article linked to by TFA says: > But Warner Bros., which stood to make $35 – $40 million on the tax write-down, wanted something in the ballpark of $75 – $80 million from a buyer. In order to make $35-40 million on a tax write-down, the deduction itself would have to be a multiple of this figure. WB's effective tax rate is 17%, which means that the deduction would have to be more than 5X the amount they would "make" from the tax write-down. But that isn't what the movie cost, according to estimates. If you read TFA and the linked articles, you can see that this movie was green-lit by a prior executive team. The reason it is getting trashed is probably because the new executives don't want to put it out there and potentially take the flak for it (if it's not good). There may also be financial account issues at play. For example, if you trash the movie you can blame your predecessors and call it a one-time cost. OTOH if you release the movie and it underwhelms, then the bad performance sticks with you for a while. FWIW, I was a tax lawyer before I turned to entrepreneurship. I don't know all the ins and outs of entertainment law/taxation (there are a lot of credits that local jurisdictions offer to woo studios to film there), so it's possible I'm missing something here. But these articles read like so many pieces I've read, that are written by folks who don't understand the difference between a deduction and a credit.