{"id":283812,"date":"2025-11-15T02:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T02:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/283812\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T02:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T02:32:08","slug":"french-art-world-up-in-arms-over-proposal-to-impose-new-taxes-on-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/283812\/","title":{"rendered":"French Art World Up In Arms Over Proposal to Impose New Taxes on Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn an attempt to increase revenue, two French parliamentarians are proposing that the government put in place a new tax regime on art in its 2026 budget. The French art world has risen up to oppose it, including issuing a lengthy statement with 27 signers, including leading fair company Art Basel, which just held the fourth edition of Art Basel Paris<\/a>; auctioneer Drouot; visual artist rights management organization ADAGP; the Association for the International Diffusion of French Art (ADIAF), which annually awards the Marcel Duchamp Prize to a French artist; and the CPGA, the Comit\u00e9 Professionel des Galeries d\u2019Art.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"People<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder the legislation, France<\/a> would become the only major market art center to impose a wealth tax on the mere possession of artworks, says the statement. France is the world\u2019s fourth-largest art market, and accounts for more than half of the European Union\u2019s market value, at $4.2 billion, according to the latest Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report<\/a>. The announcement posits that a contraction in the French art market could result in tax losses of up to \u20ac578 million (about $671.5 million) when considering the auxiliary industries fueled by the art market.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cArt Basel signed this joint declaration to echo the concerns of its galleries and the wider French art ecosystem about the potential inclusion of artworks as taxable goods in two amendments made to the 2026 French Budget Law, which is currently being debated in parliament,\u201d an Art Basel spokesperson said in an email. \u201cAs an active participant in France\u2019s cultural landscape, we remain committed to supporting our galleries and ensuring they can continue to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new regulations are being put forth by Jean-Paul Matte\u00cf of the Democratic Movement party and Philippe Juvin of the Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTechnically, how are you going to tax the fact that someone owns art?\u201d C\u00e9cile Verdier, president of Christie\u2019s France, told ARTnews in a phone call. \u201cYou can tax art when it is bought or sold, but technically, if the people who own art haven\u2019t bought it recently if they don\u2019t sell it, how are you going to tax them? Are you going to ring them at home and see if they have art? People will have to declare art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSecondly, because people will not want to declare their art, they will stop buying and selling and will pass artwork on within their families. Also you will stop lending pieces to museums because people will try not to show their art and put their name next to an object.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe proposed regulations, says the statement, are meant to direct savings toward productive investment and combat tax avoidance, but would in fact target an industry they say is \u201cneither rent-seeking nor abusive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tParis-based art advisor Hailey Widrig pointed out in a phone call that the proposal comes at a topsy-turvy time in French government, with varying parties jockeying for influence. \u201cThe government changes every week here,\u201d she told ARTnews. \u201cIt\u2019s been very chaotic since the spring.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIn her view, the main problem is that the new tax law<\/a> woudln\u2019t be consistent with similar laws in other EU nations, so it would put buyers and sellers at a disadvantage compared to other EU competitors. She also points out that the proposed guidelines stipulate that the value of the artworks would need to be assessed, but France, she said, doesn\u2019t have an organization akin to the U.S.\u2019s Internal Revenue Service, so it\u2019s not clear who would put a value on the artworks to be taxed.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the eyes of Paris dealer Kamel Mennour, the proposed tax regime was a \u201ccold shower\u201d after the successful Art Basel Paris<\/a>. \u201cThey want to kill art with this taxation,\u201d he told ARTnews. \u201cIt will make all the collectors leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not the first time that politicians have made such a move, Christie\u2019s Verdier pointed out, saying a similar proposal was mooted in 1981 under French president Fran\u00e7ois Mitterand.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s an old story and comes back on a regular basis,\u201d she said, adding, of Mitterand, \u201cThis was someone who really understood what culture means and had convictions about how to try to make rich people pay, but they never touched the art.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an attempt to increase revenue, two French parliamentarians are proposing that the government put in place a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[68150,76,354,355,49,48,356,75,637,128982],"class_list":{"0":"post-283812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-basel-paris","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-france","17":"tag-tax-law"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}