Oscar-Favorite 'Lincoln' Netted $3.5 Million in Tax Breaks

Lincoln is expected to battle Argo for Best Picture honors at tonight’s Academy Awards telecast. The film, director by Oscar-winner Steven Spielberg, is already a winner – of a tasty tax break.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds swats some Hollywood hypocrisy over taxes in The Wall Street Journal, chronicling how many recent Oscar-nominated films benefited from tax breaks and how much Lincoln received en route to Oscar night.

All the while, celebrity stars plead with government officials to raise taxes on the wealthy. 

Of the nine “Best Picture” nominees in 2012, for example, five were filmed on location in states where the production company received financial incentives, including “The Help” (in Mississippi) and “Moneyball” (in California). Virginia gave $3.5 million to this year’s Oscar-nominated “Lincoln.”

Reynold’s piece goes on to debunk myths about how film tax incentives fail to boost local economies as much as supporters claim.