Remote workers and COVID-19 in the sports, media, and entertainment industries – Are new tax obligations on the horizon?

The coronavirus pandemic has forced most studios and many other production companies to accelerate the adoption of remote working.

While the process of making creative decisions both before the shoot (such as casting, set, and costume design) and postproduction tasks (such as editing, sound engineering, marketing, and distribution) historically had been in-person work and tended to cluster in Los Angeles and New York, new virtual workspace technologies have already begun to change this thinking. Hollywood has started making progress toward shifting to a remote workforce while still completing preproduction, postproduction, and marketing and promotion. COVID-19 simply accelerated this change to working near 100 percent remotely.