Personal

Cultural assets & art

Tax planning strategies

Art collectors may be subject to various tax liabilities, often in more than one country.

We provide advice on complicated income and capital gains tax issues, as well as US transfer taxes and sales taxes, and UK inheritance tax. We are particularly adept at designing estate plans for clients to reduce the impact of US transfer taxes and UK inheritance tax.

In the US, we are skilled in reducing the impact of income and capital gains tax upon sales of art through various techniques, including ‘like kind' exchanges and charitable remainder trusts. In the UK, we have particular experience in advising the owners of heritage items exempt from inheritance tax on sales, de-exemption and lifetime gifts, often using existing family trusts.

Recent work

  • Advising the Estate of Maria-Gaetana Matisse and a charitable foundation of the late Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse on a major gift of artwork to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
  • Advising a Belgian family in establishing a corporation and trust structures to maximise their inheritance tax planning in the UK and Belgium.
  • Assisting an Italian based substantial family to set up a trust for the purpose of holding their art collection through a private museum.
  • Negotiation to de-exempt a collection following failure to reach agreement on Open Access.
  • Negotiating ‘Open Access' for exempt chattels in a hotel.
  • Advising US collectors with respect to minimizing capital gains tax on the sale of artwork through the use of charitable remainder trusts, like kind exchanges and the offsetting of art-related capital gains against non art-related capital losses.
  • Advising non-US art dealers as to the appropriate structure for doing business in the US.
  • Advising clients with respect to sales tax issues as these issues impact on interstate and international sales of art.

© Withers 2007 - 2008