When I got my Hugo ticket the other day I noticed that even though my ticket was $10.50, the ticket said there was a $.75 tax. So what I have been wondering is when grosses are recorded is it recorded as $9.75 or $10.50? Also could this mean the average price is actually lower than we think?

Not sure. You would think Hollywood grosses are put put before tax as they should be.

Don't think it will make a difference in terms of year to year comparisons.

Wouldn't a sales tax be between the movie theatre and the state? I doubt it's counted towards grosses.

I save many of my ticket stubs and none of them show how much of the admission fee was a sales tax (unless it's already included).

AMC is the only one here I've seen mention it on the stub.

Im pretty sure its not included. It shouldnt be for reporting anyway as earnings before interest and tax (ebit) are always reported.

Surely it's included. Every country has own taxes but no one deduces it before reporting actual grosses. Silly question.

I guess we're talking about value added tax that's included in the price of every product. It should be included in the grosses, because taxes are paid once a year when all financial results are accounted for.

I think in the uk there is 20% tax on tickets which i dont think is taken into account, i think a movies gross is all the money it makes excluding the tax and excluding the cut the cinema chain takes from gross.

Also when you look at the massive amounts of money made in china at the box office i think the state run distributors take a bigger cut than usual.

hollywood like all big business has its ways with tax.... remember this: http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/studio- ... ccounting/

Based on general accounting principles, no, it should not be included. The theater should collect the tax, then report the total sales amount minus tax collected.

Any possible taxes (local, state of foreign) are always included to ticket price, average ticket price and box office grosses. Period.

Well ...

When a business collects taxes, really they are just acting as a collector for the entity receiving the money. When a department store reports their sales for the day, they don't include taxes collected. Therefore I think it's a logical assumption that when a theater reports their sales for the day, they don't include taxes collected either.

I do think taxes would be included in ticket price / discussions of average ticket price, but I'm not so sure about box office grosses.

Well we know that studio only get about 55% of what it makes in theaters. I'm sure part of the 45% the theater gets is for taxes. So it shouldn't really go against admissions and what not.

- Ticket costs $10.
- Tax is $1.
- Studio gets 55% on this weekend / Theater gets 45%
- 100 Tickets are Purchased.
- $1000 is taken in.
- $100 is set aside for taxes.
- $900 is left.
- The studio reports $900 in admissions / sales for the movie.
- The studio reports $10 ticket cost
- The theater owes 55% of $900 to the studio and pays them $495.
- The theater keeps 45% of $900, aka $405.

The above is my assumption on how it would work, numbers simplified to create an easy example.

See I don't think the studios have to deal with fluctuating taxes between theaters and states. It would make more sense if there is in fact a set price that we don't know about.

For Example, a studio will charge every theater $6 a ticket for every movie. Theaters make up the difference with how much they need to turn a profit including taxes.

Then at the end, studios then give a discounted price for their movie to be seen (The dollar theater run)

I'd be incline to think the $6 figure is the actual price a studio charges a theater. Hence theaters can do post matinee,

We'll drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out grosses without taxes if they are or not even included.

Reached out to a friend who manages a theater, here's his answer:

I think some of the theaters spell out tax in their tickets and most don't. In Singapore only Cathay Cineplex includes tax per ticket and their tickets aren't relatively costly, so I presume theater owners will take some tax over tickets for their own taxes. Ofcourse the tax for a movie would have to be paid by the studios probably by year end.

boxoffice Grosses, are that it the Gross amount including tax(if you have any).
so taxes are included in the figures.
when a theatre sends in BO reports to distributors to pay film hire the calculation is done on the Net.

eg Gross 10,000 (reported amount)
Net(less Taxes) say 8000, amount to distributor/studio 50% is 50% of 8000.

when Data is reported to tracking companies like Rentrak they may receive a gross or net electronic feed/email/phone/fax from cinema.
If a cinema is listed as Gross reporting then figure inputted is taked at face value if its Net reporting the the figure inputed will then recalculate to include taxes and the gross figure will appear in the system.

Thanks RT! I knew you would be able to settle this!