Thor is coming to New Mexico, but even the Norse God of Thunder would have a tough time hammering out all the confusing data regarding the pros and cons of film incentives around the country.

Just as the governor announced that Kenneth Branagh's Thor will soon shoot in the Santa Fe area (employing about 200 New Mexicans in cast and crew positions), at least two recent studies suggest that film incentives are losing, not making, money for their states.

Last month the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation issued a special report, "Movie Production Incentives: Blockbuster Support for Lackluster Policy." The foundation, which collects data and publishes research on tax policies, is most famous for its annual Tax Freedom Day, the day when the country has theoretically earned enough income to fund its annual tax burden.

Among other findings, that report states, "It is unlikely that movie production incentives generate wealth in the long run. Most fail even in the short run." The study also says that despite some states' claims of more jobs because of the film business, in truth, many of those positions are simply in-state transplants.

"So a hairdresser, instead of doing the average New Mexican's hair, is doing the movie star's hair, which may be an increase in income, but is not a job created," said Mark Robyn, one of the contributors to the Tax Foundation study, by phone Tuesday.

At least 44 states now have some sort of film-incentive setup, making it tough to construct a broad-based case for supporting or criticizing incentives since different states offer different enticements.

Both Lisa Strout, director of the New Mexico Film Office, and Eric Witt, Gov. Richardson's director of Media Industries Development, point to the specific incentive options New Mexico offers.

Those extras include a 25 percent tax rebate on all direct production expenditures, including New Mexico crew, that are subject to taxation by the state; a 50 percent reimbursement of wages for on-the-job training of New Mexican citizens in below-the-line (technical) crew positions, and a zero-percent loan for up to $15 million per project for qualifying productions.

"We haven't changed our incentives program in five years," Witt said Tuesday. "We've maintained them even as other states have gone to 30, 35, 40 percent (rebates), and yet production companies are still coming to New Mexico.

"We're unique, we're sustainable, and we began by building out our crew and infrastructure base, including the number of businesses that now service the film industry directly or indirectly."

Strout echoed Witt's comments, noting, "You can't apply our success-story formula to most of the other states."

Since the governor signed film legislation into law in 2003, the economic impact on New Mexico has been about $3 billion, according to Strout and Witt. While the state did pay out about $80 million in refundable tax rebates last year, film companies operating in the state have generated $320 million in direct spending as well. The state uses an economic multiplier of three in its calculations.

Still, with the state facing a $650 million shortfall, legislators are looking to cut financial fat any way — and anywhere — they can.

Robyn said that's the situation all around the country, and that The Tax Foundation is against giving tax incentives to any industry.

"Our view is that there's no reason that filmmakers should be favored over other industries," he said in defending the study. "If lawmakers were to actually cut taxes for all businesses, and not favor certain businesses over others with breaks, it would probably provide more benefit for the entire state.

"But it's not visible. Lawmakers couldn't say, 'Look at this industry we brought to this state.'"

And bringing the movie industry to New Mexico is a key part of the plan, Witt said. He'd like to see more production facilities take root here, as well as permanent production companies. Likewise, the governor wants to continue to develop the labor force in film.

While acknowledging the state Legislature's right to question the worth of incentive programs, Witt said highly publicized reports can create "a chilling effect on the industry."

"Just this morning, the governor had to get on the phone with the head of a very major production outfit in Los Angeles to assure it that New Mexico would continue to support it, or they were going to pull two big films," Witt said. "Companies are beginning to ask, 'Should we bring films there, much less relocate our entire company to the state?'

He predicted that within the next 18 months, only three to five states that have incentives will still be at it, and that the so-called arms race to offer the best incentives will come to a halt.

"New Mexico will be the premiere state of the West, if not the entire country," he said. "We're at the point of winning this competition. Film production has, for all intents and purposes, left California, and companies are looking for new homes."

Robyn acknowledged New Mexico is a pretty "unique location, and it's hard to say what fraction of movie production would continue to go on in absence of credits. There's a lot of things you can't get anywhere else but New Mexico."

Still, he said the competition between the states is nothing more than "a race to the bottom where states are giving away more and more money and the film industry has so much leverage it can say, 'If you don't give us another million dollars, we'll leave.' And you want to avoid that in any tax situation."

On Tuesday, The Albuquerque Journal reported that a New England-based study being used by anti-incentive New Mexican lawmakers suggests that taxpayers only get back 39 cents for every dollar spent on the film industry — which is a much different amount estimated by the Ernst and Young study of 2009, commissioned by the New Mexico State Film Office and State Investment Council. That report said, among other positive things, that New Mexico's film incentives created roughly $1.50 in net tax revenue for every dollar spent — and at least 2,200 direct jobs.

Jennifer Weiner, a policy analyst for The New England Public Policy Center, compared film incentive programs and studies for New Mexico, New York and Connecticut in an April 2009 memorandum. Speaking by phone Tuesday, she said she was asked to compile the report for Connecticut Voices for Children, a public-education advocacy group that was concerned about how much money and effort that state was putting into attracting film productions.

Her study was based on existing data about those states' film-incentive programs, and was not in any way politically motivated, she said.

Senate Bill 235, which would put a $2 million cap on production expenditures for individual film and television projects under the state incentives program, might still be heard inside the Roundhouse before the session ends. The bill was introduced by Senate Finance Committee Vice Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, who two years ago introduced a similar bill, which was tabled. In January the film industry survived a more drastic bill, introduced by Rep. Dennis J. Kintigh, R-Roswell, that would have removed all film incentives.

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.