The Eady Levy was a tax on box office receipts in the United Kingdom, intended to support the British film industry and named for Sir Wilfred Eady. It was established in 1957 and terminated in 1985.

Background[link]

A levy was first proposed by Harold Wilson, then president of the Board of Trade, in 1949. The levy was intended to assist producers of British film. A direct governmental payment to British-based producers would have qualified as a subsidy under the terms of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and would have led to objections from American film producers. An indirect levy did not qualify as a subsidy, and so was a suitable way of providing additional funding for the UK film industry whilst avoiding criticism from abroad.

The levy established[link]

The Eady Levy came into effect on 9 September 1950 but was not established on a statutory basis until its incorporation in the Cinematograph Film Act of 1957. It had the effect of both assisting the film industry, and reducing the effect of Entertainment Tax on film exhibition, to which all the cinema industry was opposed.

In the Eady Levy, a proportion of the ticket price was to be pooled — half to be retained by exhibitors (i.e., effectively a rebate on the tax) and half to be divided among qualifying 'British' films in proportion to UK box office revenue, with no obligation to invest in further production. The Finance Bill (1950) had previously made the necessary changes in the Entertainments tax. The levy was collected by HM Customs and Excise and administered by the British Film Fund Agency.

The rise in British cinema (including the James Bond movies) during the 1960s caused by an influx of American producers can be attributed to the Eady Levy - and also to the cheaper production facilities - making it cost far less in the UK to achieve the same quality of production. A number of American film makers worked in Britain in this period on a near-permanent basis, including Sidney Lumet, Stanley Donen, and John Huston. Stanley Kubrick moved to Britain in the early sixties to make Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange amongst others. Another expatriate American, Richard Lester, directed The Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night and Help!.

To qualify as a British film no less than 85% of the film had to be shot in the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, and only three non British individual salaries could be excluded from the costs of the film ensuring the employment of British actors, technicans and film crew.^[1]

It was not only American film makers who came; a number of distinguished European directors also made films in Britain. These included Roman Polanski, François Truffaut (who made Fahrenheit 451) and Jean-Luc Godard.

The Eady Levy also provided funding for the National Film and Television School, which trained a number of directors and actors still in work today. It also provided funding for the boost of the British pornographic film industry through the 1970s^{[citation needed]}

Termination of the levy[link]

The Eady Levy was a tax on box office receipts, and was intended to support UK film production. However, in a White Paper in 1984, the British Government recognised that the levy was no longer fulfilling its original purpose, with much of the payment going directly to distributors rather than producers, and proving an unreasonable burden on the exhibition sector. The Eady Levy was terminated in 1985.

See also[link]

• Cinema of the United Kingdom

References[link]

External links[link]

• UK Valuation Office Agency Operational Instructions
• Terra Media - Quotas and Levies
• Close Up - British Popular Cinema

v t e Cinema of the United Kingdom Culture of the United Kingdom World cinema Films by year (Films A–Z) Pre 1920 1920s 1930s 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Production companies and studios Active Aardman Animations BBC Films British Lion Films Ealing Studios Elstree Studios Eon Productions Film4 Productions Goldcrest Films Hammer Film Productions HandMade Films London Films Palace Pictures The Pinewood Studios Group (Pinewood Studios Shepperton Studios) S4C Films Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden Warp Films Wimbledon Studios Working Title Films Former Amicus Productions Associated British Picture Corporation Bryanston Films Denham Film Studios Gainsborough Pictures Hemdale Film Corporation Ideal Rank Organisation Tigon British Film Productions Warwick Films Organisations BAFTA British Board of Film Classification British Film Institute BFI National Archive BFI Southbank British Society of Cinematographers Children's Film Foundation Cinema Exhibitors' Association National Film and Television School National Media Museum Northern Ireland Screen Scottish Screen UK Film Council People Actors and actresses Cinematographers Directors Editors Producers Production designers Score composers Screenwriters Other British Academy Film Awards British Independent Film Awards British New Wave Carry On Cinematograph Films Act 1927 Documentary Film Movement Eady Levy Ealing Comedies Free Cinema Gainsborough melodramas Harry Potter History of British film certificates Home Video Charts James Bond London Film Festival London in film Telecinema Category Commons