New Deductions for Artists
by Daniel Grant
|
|
Yesterday's Gift
Lili Maglione
|
Between 1967 and 1969, New York's Museum of Modern Art received 321 works of art (drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture) as gifts from the 97 artists who had created them. During the next three-year period, 1970-72, only 15 artists donated 28 works, most of which were prints. Why the big drop-off in donations by artists?
 |
|
|
|
|
Blame the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which went into effect in 1970. That law took away the right of artists to deduct the fair market value of the works that they donated to charitable institutions, like museums, allowing them only to deduct the cost of materials used in making the pieces. With the loss of this tax incentive, gifts from artists to museums plummeted all over the United States.
|
The Gift
Maria Pietri Lalor
|
|
|
Big Dollar
Alice Brickner
|
But now the tax incentive may be restored. Congressman Amo Houghton (R.-NY) has introduced a bill into the House of Representatives -- the Artists' Contribution to American Heritage Act -- that would
amend the Internal Revenue Service code to restore to artists a fair market value deduction for charitable donations of their work. A ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, the politically moderate Houghton has long been a supporter of the arts.
|
|
|
|
|
Maxwell Anderson, Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, and several other museum directors "met with a couple of dozen Congressmen before we got to Houghton," Anderson said. Houghton's legislation also contains a number of taxpayer protections against abuse, including the requirement that the donated artwork must have been created at least 18 months before the gift is made, in order "to prevent an artist from painting a tax deduction" when they estimate their tax payments, Anderson said.
|
Waiting
JoAnn Bishop
|
|
|
Cleveland Museum, Ohio
Valery Izumrudov
|
If the bill is enacted into law, the effect on the museum world would be "profound," said Peter Marzio, director of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. "It would enrich the collections." The effect might be even greater at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, which "has no acquisitions budget -- zero, zilch," said Joseph Thompson, MassMoCA's Director. "Anything that makes contributions more possible is in the public's interest."
|
|
|
|
Read our archived Art in the News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
