Artist should be valued

"Bob Masta" wrote in message
...

As I mentioned in my earlier posts, the artists are not now being
singled out for unfair treatment... it's the same rule that is applied
equally to all individuals, be they artists, carpenters, or truck
drivers. If, in fact, corporations don't have to abide by this same
rule is another question. They seem to be able to pick and choose
when they will be accorded treatment as persons (like demanding
"rights") and when they can hide behind the corporate veil.

[There's a difference between a volunteer, who contributes labor to a cause,
and an artist, who contributes a product. An artist is generally considered
a manufacturer by the government; they have to pay sales tax for retail
sales, for instance, while selling ones labor is exempt from that (at least
here in California). If a carpenter owns his own cabinet shop, and donates a
cabinet to a non-profit, it would be valued at full market value, unless he
called it "art". There's nothing that restricts this to corporations; if
you, as an individual, donate your car to charity, you get whatever they can
sell it for as a deduction. (It used to be Blue Book value, but they changed
that...)]

It would be very interesting to find out just where the corporate
perks come into play here. Consider a corporation consisting of
assembly-line artists cranking out "starving artist originals" the
way they do in third-world countries. Could the corporation
claim market value if it donated its products? If so, then just
how small a corporation would be eligible? It only takes 3 people
to form a standard corporation, so artist's co-ops would seem
to be eligible.

[I'm afraid you just made this up, Bob. It's owner-made art that's being
discriminated against here, not individuals or non-corporate entities. Under
current law as I understand it, if the corporation is considered the author
of the art, then all it could deduct would be the cost of materials. But if
it structured itself as an "art collection corporation" and bought the work
from the artists, then it could claim fair market value if it donated it to
a non-profit.]

Andrew Werby
www.unitedartworks.com


On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 15:54:23 -0800, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:

If a collector buys a work of art, and donates it to a museum, they can
deduct the fair market value at the time of the donation, not just what
they
paid originally. This can work out to a tidy profit for the donator. But
if
the artist who made it donates it, all he/she can deduct is the original
price of materials. Is this fair?

When an artist dies, by the way, the value of their art in the estate is
assessed at fair market value - the big problem alleged in fixing value
seems to disappear. Often, the heirs are forced to sell it off at
fire-sale
prices to pay the tax owed, and can't afford to donate any to non-profits.
Is that fair, or in the public interest?

Bob writes: "If your work is so good that museums want it, you can't be
hurting too badly." I wonder what planet he comes from. Here on earth,
being
able to produce art that's good -even good enough for museums - does not
guarantee any monetary income at all. Yes, you can indeed be hurting
badly.
While artists, I agree, should not be accorded specially favorable
treatment
in the tax code, neither should they be singled out for specially
unfavorable treatment. Any other manufacturer who donates their products
to
a recognized non-profit can deduct the fair market value, whether it is
computers for schools or food for the hungry, and this is generally
accepted
as good for everybody concerned. Many industries get more favorable
treatment than that, like the oil companies (and they're not exactly
hurting), which get a "depletion allowance" for the petroleum that lies in
the ground (appreciating greatly as it does so). But artists, uniquely,
are
arbitrarily limited to deducting the costs of their materials only; not
the
cost of their overhead, equipment, foundry services, education, or any of
the other costs that went into producing their art. Is that fair, or even
consistent?

As I mentioned in my earlier posts, the artists are not now being
singled out for unfair treatment... it's the same rule that is applied
equally to all individuals, be they artists, carpenters, or truck
drivers. If, in fact, corporations don't have to abide by this same
rule is another question. They seem to be able to pick and choose
when they will be accorded treatment as persons (like demanding
"rights") and when they can hide behind the corporate veil.

It would be very interesting to find out just where the corporate
perks come into play here. Consider a corporation consisting of
assembly-line artists cranking out "starving artist originals" the
way they do in third-world countries. Could the corporation
claim market value if it donated its products? If so, then just
how small a corporation would be eligible? It only takes 3 people
to form a standard corporation, so artist's co-ops would seem
to be eligible.

Nobody's talking about being "owed a living" here. A tax donation is only
useful if one has a tax liability in the first place; it does you no good
if
you're too poor to have to file a return. And if the museum didn't think a
prospective donation was worth having, they are under no obligation to
accept it. The tax code is commonly used to encourage things the
government
thinks are good (like owning a home, or digging oil wells), and to
discourage things it considers harmful (like smoking cigarettes, or buying
sugar from other countries). In this case, it would seem that art was in
the
latter category, as far as the bureaucrats of Washington are concerned. Of
course, it's really just a matter of political clout - the mortgage, oil
and
sugar industries have it, artists do not, and we are punished accordingly.
If we got together and lobbied for equitable treatment we might get it;
the
status quo is the result of our not having a collective voice that reaches
the ears of our rulers.

Andrew Werby

www.computersculpture.com

Again, I don't believe there is anything in the tax code that singles
out artists, so lobbying for "equitable" treatment won't help... it's
already the same treatment everyone gets. This may come down
to individuals versus corporate clout, but it's not about artists
per-se. We'd *all* like to be able to deduct fair market value
for donations of our labor or products!

Best regards,



Bob Masta

DAQARTA v3.50
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, FREE Signal Generator
Science with your sound card!