There are taxis and there are taxes. I’m sure that if we were given a choice, most of us would choose taxis. Even if it’s more likely that we’ll get a tax return than return in a taxi.
But we must all do our bit to keep our society functioning. Like paying police to catch criminals. Like paying for prisons in which to keep the criminals caught by the police. Like paying the judges who put the criminals caught by the police into prisons. Like paying the MPs who make the laws that judges use to put criminals caught by the police into prisons. Like paying the police to arrest the MPs who break the laws they make and that judges use to put into prison those criminals caught by the police. That’s why we pay taxes.
Some of our high-profile artists have been stalked by the Receiver (it would be more appropriate if it were called the Taker) of Revenue recently, and not because he was in search of autographs! The Sunday Sun reported that ”gospel queen Rebecca Malope, who recently owed the taxman over R1- million, was forced to sell her upmarket house in Kyalami Estate”. According to the report, Jabu Khanyile, Chicco Twala and another gospel singer, Deborah Fraser, haven’t been rendering unto Caesar as SARS thought they should.
Perhaps our top artists thought they were living in Ireland. Some 30 years ago, Charles Haughey, then the country’s finance minister and a great supporter of the arts, introduced a tax-free status for writers, artists and musicians not only to assist ”struggling artists”, but to affirm the value that the Irish Republic placed on artistic and creative talent. (See next year’s ”Tips for Trevor”!)
Now, however, with many Irish artists like U2, Riverdance and The Corrs earning between 500 000 and 10-million euros annually, this tax-free scheme is being reviewed and will probably be replaced by a sliding scale in which the tax-free scheme benefits artists at the lower earnings end, while high earners pay a minimum tax rate of 20%.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, professional artists in Australia are celebrating what they believe to be a major concession from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) that now recognises artists who conduct their arts activities as a business for taxation purposes, as opposed to the former position of the ATO that if no profits were being made from an activity, then that activity was not a legitimate business for tax purposes. The new ruling distinguishes professional artists from those who indulge in art for recreational or hobby purposes, and allows them to write off their art-making expenses against all other income sources, even if these income sources are not arts- related. (So, for example, a painter could claim tax breaks for the costs of her canvasses against her earnings as a dog-walker.)
In Unesco’s Recommendation Concerning the Status of the Artist, a visionary document adopted more than 25 years ago that spells out the optimum conditions that states should create for artists, it declares: ”Convinced of the uncertainty of artists’ incomes and their sudden fluctuations, of the special features of artistic activity and of the fact that many artistic callings can be followed only for a relatively short period of life, Member States are invited to make provision for pension rights for certain categories of artists according to length of career and not the attainment of a certain age and to take into account in their taxation system the particular conditions of artists’ work and activity.”
Many artists feel oppressed by our current tax regime. Maybe it’s because we don’t understand it sufficiently. But maybe it’s because it doesn’t take sufficient account of the conditions in which artists work and of the nature of their income. Perhaps it’s time for an intensive study, leading maybe to (tax) regime change?