TV production company

TV production company

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My client is a limited company (ABC Limited) involved with TV production projects for Irish television. The company has one director and shareholder (Mr A).

Mr A is the guy in charge of all projects undertaken and he is responsible for pulling together various shows under strict budgets granted by Irish TV companies. Part of the budgets include his "directors" and production fee which is essentially his earnings as such from his own company.

In this type of business, it seems common to see these costs included in the Profit & Loss account as "production manager fee" and corporation tax relief obtained thereon. Does this mean it should be treated as self employment earnings of Mr A? Or should this really be treated as employment earnings with my client (ABC Limited ) being the employer?

It is not regular earnings as such so I am thinking this isn't employment income and there is no need for RTI filings as such.

If anyone has any experience in this particular industry it would be useful to find out if these payments can attract corporation tax relief for ABC Limited whilst not being treated as employment earnings as such (i.e. the director is being paid as self employed person). He does have other income sources and businesses so he is not fully tied to ABC Limited. Or should these be simply treated as dividends?

Many thanks folks!

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By mjshort
09th Dec 2014 17:06

TV production projects

I am a 'Production Accountant'  on tv credits and Chartered Accountant.

For your director: Although we call them 'Production Fee', 'Script Development', 'Producer' etc. this is because these are the categories in the budget from the tv companies.

Basically these are just expense categories in line with the revenue items.

 

Your director just takes a salary or a dividend as normal.

It would be unusual for a director to get self-employment income from his company-but I suppose he could if he had a specialised skill and own equipment (say, cameraman) and charged a number of companies for this work.

Hopefully, Irish rules are the same.

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