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8th September 2009 - AIC condemns attack on artists’ tax exemption

The taxation commission report published on Sept 7th calls for the complete abolition of the current exemption on creative work. While recognising that the public finances as a whole are suddenly in extremely bad shape, AIC strongly objects to the unthinking way that the artists’ tax exemption has been drawn into the debate around budgetary measures to stabilise the economy.

The key thing that seems to escape the attention of the taxation commission is that artists earn very little on average, and that they are typically getting their meagre creative earnings direct from public sources in the first place.

Artists generally work in a vocational way: that is, their primary motivation is not the earning potential of what they produce. In economic terms they are very like sportsmen and women: they are self-motivated towards self-improvement, and they will work (often for nothing) for long periods towards a particular goal. When they score a success, the material rewards rarely reflect the true work that has been put in, especially if the long apprenticeship is factored in.

How strange then to find that the same commission report supports the continuation of a relief known as ‘the sportsperson’s relief’ (art. 8.99), and a further relief scheme on donations to sports bodies (8.44). AIC is not suggesting that there is anything wrong with this.

The work that artists and sportspeople are engaged in is positive for society in a number of ways: mentoring, educating, entertaining and inspiring, plus it has a positive effect on the reputation (and mood) of the country as a whole.

The economic impact of even the most successful practitioners in either sport or art falls mainly outside of the control of those practitioners: think of the spin-offs from sporting events, or from concerts, publishing, broadcasting, theatre and exhibitions; moreover, these are all taxed. The tax exemption as it currently stands applies only to the economically fragile research and development end of the cultural sphere. Is it truly economic to harm this inexpensive, generative part of the mechanism that, over time, feeds into an enormous economic environment? It is certainly not especially ethical.

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To read the taxation commission report in full see http://www.taxcommission.ie/Report.html. For further reading: see http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/Publications/other/relassofirishcomposers.pdf and http://www.visualartists.ie/Services/sfr_news.html#responsetotaxcommission

also note our letter in the Irish Times, 10th Sept http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2009/0910/1224254200108.html