Taxes & Artists: Taking a Time & Services Deduction
Awhile back, we wrote about how you CAN'T donate your time and services and claim fair market value for such as a deduction (An Original Picasso for $50? That's what they say..., 2/10/07), and one potential solution that could get you a bit more credit for your donations, when you do (The Non-Profit Challenge, 11/19/07), but once again, there is a bill winding it's way through Congress that would allow:
"...artists to take a fair-market value deduction for works given to and retained by nonprofit institutions. The U.S. tax system accords unequal treatment to creators and collectors who donate tangible works (e.g., paintings or manuscripts) to museums, libraries, educational or other collecting institutions. A collector may take a tax deduction for the fair-market value of the work, but creators may deduct only their "basis" value—essentially the cost of materials such as paint and canvas."If you can enter your name and address, and click the "send" button, in less than two minutes you can actually send an e-mail to your elected official that represents you, through this very cool system. Americans for the Arts has their Advocate for the Arts website and all you do is enter your address, and they will automatically route your sentiments to your Senator or Member! If you'd like to her Senator/Photographer Pat Leahy (and the bill's sponsor) in an NPR interview on the subject, click here.
(Comments, if any, after the Jump)
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3 comments:
A possible work around - Can you trade your work with another artist - Then donate the other artist's work with you as the collector at fair market value?
In the "Picasso" link there is another link to the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, which says, in part:
"there is one organzation that claims to have an answer, but I don't know a whole lot about them. They state that "The only legal way around this is an artist's relatives may take off the retail value of the works if they donate the artists' works. Artists themselves may exchange works with other artists and each donate the others works for the full retail value. In both cases you must have: (1) IRS recognized museum; (2) formal written appraisal; (3) the appraiser supply you with the IRS required forms." For more information on them, check out the Artist-Museum Partnership Act and find out of you can make this work-around viable."
John
Wow, if this thing passes, I will be donating a crap-load of prints every year. I'll limit such prints to a single edition -- that is, of works I truly could care less about...
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