This week, anticipating a new clash between collectors and the taxman…
AIM HIGH
On April 6, New York state announced a new budget that does exactly what many in the liberal-leaning cultural sector have been clamoring for every level of government to do in recent years: raise taxes on the highest-earning residents, partly to directly benefit the art industry. The question now will be whether this more progressive tax policy works as envisioned, or whether it backfires by driving the one percent away from spending, giving, and even living in New York.
All told, the state’s fiscal year 2022 budget will channel more than $1 billion in relief and recovery funding to small businesses within and beyond the cultural space. The lion’s share of that total ($865 million) will take the form of grants to small businesses, including both for-profit and nonprofit arts institutions accosted by our ongoing public-health nightmare. Another $139 million will be doled out to the same catego