REYMERSWAELE, Marinus van
Flemish painter (b. ca. 1490)
The Banker and His Wife
Oil on wood
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes
UPDATE: 11/30/05 [Thanx Lisa!]
From: "ArtSmart" <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:54:15 -0600
Subject: US artists who pay taxes -- urgent bulletin!
This important message is to make you aware of an opportunity you have
to influence the way your art is treated in the tax code. There is a
bill just passed in the Senate that would expand the deductible amount
of donated artwork to its full value. Currently the only allowed
deduction is cost of materials. However, THIS BILL HAS NOT PASSED THE
HOUSE. That's where you come in. The bill will be hashed out in a
House/Senate committee that begins to meet soon. Here's how you can
help:
- Call and let your Representative know you would like to see them support the Senate's version of the Tax Relief bill, especially this provision.
- Go to Art-Exchange Petition and sign up. We will present the petition and names to the chair of the House/Senate conference committee. Our goal is to obtain at least 10,000 names, with at least one from every state and one from D.C.
- Call and thank your Senator for the Senate's inclusion of this provision and let them know that it is important to you that it remain in the tax relief bill.
- Forward this email to your friends.
via NYTimes:
Senate Bill Lets Artists Claim Price for Gifts
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: November 22, 2005
Living writers, musicians, artists and scholars who donate their work to a museum or other charitable cause would earn a tax deduction based on full fair market value under a bill just passed by the Senate.
Currently such work receives only a deduction based on the cost of materials unless it is donated posthumously by the estates.
The measure was approved as an amendment to a broader $59.6 billion tax relief bill passed by the Senate early Friday. It now goes to a House-Senate conference committee. The House version of the tax relief bill does not include the arts provision, but the senators who introduced the amendment - Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Pete V. Domenici, a New Mexico Republican - said they were hopeful that the committee would support it.
Under the bill, artists could donate their work during their lifetimes at full market value provided that it is properly appraised and handed over at least 18 months after it is created.
The provision seems likely to open the way for more acquisitions by cash-strapped museums. "It's very important for cultural institutions and libraries to be able to be the recipient of these works of art that otherwise might go into private hands," said Mimi Gaudieri, the executive director of the Association of Art Museum Directors..." [read on...]
