Form IT-665: New York Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Credit (Tax Year 2025)

Form IT-665 is the tax form New York State uses to let eligible newspaper and broadcast media businesses claim the Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Credit. The credit was created to help local news operations retain employees and stay financially viable at a time when print and broadcast outlets across the state have been cutting staff or shutting down entirely. If your business publishes a newspaper or operates a broadcast station in New York and you kept jobs on payroll during the qualifying period, this form is how you turn that retention into a real tax benefit.

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance issues Form IT-665 as part of the personal income tax and corporation tax filing package. It’s not a standalone application — you attach it to your main return (IT-201, IT-203, CT-3, or the relevant business return) for the tax year in which you’re claiming the credit. For 2025 filings, this version of the form reflects the current credit calculation rules and reporting requirements set by the state legislature when the program was authorized.

Who Needs to File Form IT-665

This form is meant for owners and operators of qualifying media businesses, specifically:

• Newspaper publishers based in New York State
• Broadcast media companies, including radio and television stations licensed to operate in the state
• Businesses that employed news journalists during the applicable tax year and can document that employment

If you don’t operate in one of these two sectors, you won’t have any use for this credit. It’s narrowly targeted legislation, similar in spirit to other industry-specific New York credits like the Farm Employer Overtime Credit under Form IT-661, which exists to support a different but equally specific segment of the state’s workforce.

When You Use This Form

You use Form IT-665 when preparing your annual New York State tax return for the year in which you employed qualifying journalists and want to claim the associated credit. The credit amount is generally tied to the number of news journalist jobs maintained and the wages paid to those employees during the tax year. Because eligibility depends on employment data specific to that filing period, you can’t apply the credit retroactively without amending a prior return — you need to claim it on the return that corresponds to the tax year the jobs were maintained.

Timing matters here. If your business has multiple locations or subsidiaries, you’ll want to gather journalist headcount and payroll figures well before your filing deadline so you’re not scrambling to complete Form IT-665 at the last minute. Missing documentation is the most common reason credit claims get delayed or rejected during review.

How to Get and Complete Form IT-665

The form is available directly from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance as a fillable PDF, meaning you can type your entries directly into the file using any standard PDF reader before printing or submitting it electronically with your return. This saves time compared to printing a blank copy and filling it out by hand.

When completing it, you’ll need:

• Your business’s employer identification information
• A count of qualifying news journalist positions maintained during the tax year
• Total wages paid to those employees
• Any prior-year credit carryforward amounts, if applicable

Double-check the instructions that accompany the form each year, since credit rates and eligibility thresholds can be adjusted through the state budget process. What qualified in a previous tax year isn’t guaranteed to carry over unchanged.

Handling sensitive payroll and business identification data on tax forms always carries some risk, especially when submitting digitally. If you’re a preparer working with multiple client files, it’s worth reviewing general guidance like the one covered in Security Tips for Tax Professionals to make sure you’re not exposing client information unnecessarily while managing forms like IT-665 alongside other state and federal filings.

Once completed, Form IT-665 gets submitted along with your regular New York State tax return — not separately. Keep copies of your journalist employment records and payroll documentation on file in case the Department of Taxation and Finance requests verification during processing or in a later audit.