Tonight is the movie industry's big event.
Films nowadays are as much about the money they make as they are about art. That's why the Academy Awards' Best Picture category was expanded to 10 flicks
Some of that financial benefit accrues to the theaters that play the films. But the owners of
Cindy and Jack Ondracek have owned a three-screen drive-in in Port Orchard, Wash., since 1986, and owned the Redwood
Cinema in Bremerton, Wash., from 2002 to 2005. The IRS says that throughout those years, the couple took in about $2 million in gross receipts but didn't fork over the government's share of that income.
Mrs. Ondracek admitted that tax oversight last week in U.S. District Court in
Tacoma.
The Seattle P-I police blog Seattle 911 reports that she's scheduled to be sentenced on May
27, when she could get up to five years in prison and be ordered to pay a $250,000 fine
plus interest and penalties on the unpaid taxes.
There's no word yet on the disposition of the charges against her husband.
Blog title aside: I love the title Seattle 911. But I must confess that the first question that came to mind when I saw it was does the Pacific Northwest (or the online newspaper) have its own
Dangle
Not taxes, but trademark troubles: I'll be watching the Oscars tonight from the comfort of my den. Some other Austinites will unexpectedly be tuning in tonight from their homes since their viewing party plans have been canceled.
Watching the Academy Awards on the big screen at the Alamo
Drafthouse theater has become an Austin tradition, but this year the theater was notified by the Academy that it does not have legal
permission to host its Oscar watch parties.
The issue is making money off a product that doesn't belong to that
entity, Texas State University media law professor Gilbert Martinez told News Channel 8.
Alamo Drafthouse hopes to have the legal issues ironed out by the 2011 Oscar show. Today, however, and through Thursday, the theater
will feature the five short films nominated in the best live-action category.
Related
posts:
- Oscars idiocy and a half-hearted hooray for Hollywood tax breaks
- Scary! Tax breaks for
filmmakers - Film tax credit survives California
$ woes - Hooray for
Hollywood tax breaks - Shawshank's tax redemption
- Accountants exciting lives — on film
- A well-intentioned IRS agent … in a movie
- Oscar Special: Movies & Money
- Hollywood swag remains; is tax still around, too?
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