Industry insider/displaced regional Bulgarian producer/resurrected satirist Dan Pierce shares his wit, savvy and front-line experiences dealing in the Canadian film and television community. On a semi-regular basis, Dan will highlight some of the more telling moments of his everyday life – moments, like the one below, that speak volumes about the industry at large, and at the same time, leave us all with some delicious food for thought.

Yuri had been one of the hottest producers in Sofia. Once. But it’s been tough since the communist subsidies stopped. He was in Toronto trying to figure out how a small capitalist country like Canada runs its TV industry, so he looked me up. Yuri learned fast; he understood everything. Everything…except for…tax credits. I was determined not to let him get on the airplane until he got it. It was my last try. I stripped it down to the essentials. ‘It’s actually straightforward…the government gives you money that doesn’t exist and you invest it in your production.’

I could see his Eastern European brain was slipping into gear. ‘I get it Dan. You take money that the government doesn’t give you and you spend it. That’s a good deal. Reminds me of Bulgaria in the old days.’

Finally I was making progress. ‘That’s right. Even though the tax credit money doesn’t exist, you can get a bank to lend you money against it. And then not only does it not exist, but you can pay interest charges on it as if it did. And you keep paying the bank for as long as it takes the government to give you the money that doesn’t exist.’

I could see that I was losing him again. ‘So the government does give you the money eventually?’

‘In a manner of speaking. After they have checked that you are entitled to tax credits.’

‘How do they check?’ he asked skeptically. He is a sophisticated Eastern European guy and has been round the block; after all, hadn’t they invented bureaucracy? No one could outdo them! ‘Do they ask to see your program? And make sure that it is Canadian?’

‘No,’ I laughed. ‘They are not that gullible. The show has nothing to do with it. They check the citizenship of everyone who worked on the project. You know – where they were born, that kind of thing. They want to see everyone’s papers. Lineage.’

‘Like passport control in Europe.’ He understood immediately. ‘Something like the Germans do to keep out the Turkish guest workers.’

I continued. ‘Listen Yuri, in Ottawa the government has an office where they check the birth certificates of everyone who worked on the project and, if there are no impostors, they give you a piece of paper that entitles you to the imaginary money you never had and have already spent and are still paying interest charges on.’

‘So, then you get the imaginary money that you have already spent.’

‘No. No. Not yet. Now you have a piece of paper that shows that true Canadians worked on the production. But the government still has no way of knowing that you have spent their imaginary money, do they?’

‘So what next?’ he asked, clearly amazed despite his cool demeanor.

‘The accountants move in. Provincial, federal accountants, the creme de la creme. And, using the greatest care, they audit the production. And if there is overwhelming evidence that the crew did not lynch the producers for trying to pay in imaginary monies, then you are eligible to collect your tax credits.’

‘Fantastic!’ Yuri shouted. ‘I’m sure that I can sell tax credits in Bulgaria. It already seems Eastern European.

‘By the way,’ he added, ‘how long does it take to get your imaginary money? From beginning to end…’

‘Just three years.’ I said.

‘Still, not too bad. After all it’s free imaginary money. In your pocket, no…?’

‘The banks. They get it,’ I said.

‘But what about you, don’t you get anything?’

‘…Debt. Just debt.’

‘It is just like communism!’ he grinned, running to catch his airplane. *