Appeal for tax breaks to shore up the arts

Published on Saturday 5 December 2009 18:53

ONE of Scotland's leading businessmen and philanthropists has joined a top artist in calling for wider tax breaks to boost private giving to the arts.

Corporate financier and City Inn founder Donald MacDonald, CBE, wants "enhanced tax relief" to help arts organisations and encourage donors prepared to commit to several years of giving through "very difficult times".

Artist Callum Innes, whose work is held in collections around the world, said it was time for extra incentives for people wanting to donate.

Concern is growing in the arts world about corporate sponsorship hard-hit by the banking crisis, and public subsidies facing the axe amid rising government borrowing.

A Scottish Arts Council report last week said 61 per cent of arts organisations had reported a drop in private and public funding, with particular concern centred on Edinburgh's festivals.

MacDonald said the economic downturn had seen a shift of emphasis from corporate sponsorship towards giving from individuals, family and charitable trusts.

He has approached the Arts and Business organisation, which co-ordinates business support for the arts, to lobby for improved tax incentives for donors.

He said: "Where donors old or new were prepared to contract to support an organisation for the next three-year period, this could bring enhanced tax relief which could be shared between the donor and the organisation. That could help the arts industry at the same time as giving a little bit more incentive to the donors.

"There are two objectives – getting support that is going to stick for two to three years and to help the organisations through what I think will be very difficult times."

MacDonald, who has founded businesses including the City Inn hotel chain, recently won the Prince of Wales Medal for Arts Philanthropy for his work with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Edinburgh International Festival and other arts bodies.

Innes called for Britain to follow the example of the US or France in offering concessions. He said the move would be particularly important for the National Galleries of Scotland, with its acquisitions budget going to the 50 million Titian painting Diana and Actaeon earlier this year.

"Concessions would support the National Galleries and all museums throughout Britain," said Innes, who is currently working closely with the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

"It would be a positive way forward without eating into the government's coffers so much," he added.

In the US and France there are generous concessions to people who give art or cash to arts bodies and charities. A change in French law in 2003, to give 90 per cent tax relief on donations, is said to have added ||EURO||100 million to the budgets of galleries and cultural institutions and boosted the buying power of the Louvre.