Film Accounting Glossary
Jurisdiction
What is jurisdiction?
Also called incentive jurisdiction, or filming jurisdiction.
In incentive terms, a jurisdiction is the state, province, or country whose program a production is claiming under, and each one sets its own rules for qualifying spend, labor residency, minimum spend, caps, and audit.
Shooting across two jurisdictions means running two parallel qualification tests over the same ledger. Which jurisdiction a cost belongs to is determined by where the work was performed or the goods used, not by where the invoice was paid.
Example
A show splits 18 days in one state and 12 in another. The same ledger is tested twice, against two definitions of qualifying spend, two residency tests, and two minimum thresholds. A vehicle used in state A but invoiced from state B belongs to A, because the work happened there.
Figures are illustrative, chosen to show the mechanics rather than to quote market rates.
Where you'll see it
Determined by where work was performed or goods used, not by where the invoice was paid. Drives how the chart of accounts is segmented.
Common mistake
Assigning cost by where the invoice was paid. Qualification follows where the work was performed or the goods used, which is often a different place entirely.
Related questions
- How is the right incentive jurisdiction determined for a cost?
- By where the work was performed or the goods were used, not by where the vendor is billed from or where the payment was issued.
- What happens when a production shoots in two jurisdictions?
- The same ledger is tested twice, against two definitions of qualifying spend, two residency tests, two minimum thresholds, and usually two separate audits.