Pago en Especie: In Mexico, You Can Pay Your Taxes in Paintings and Sculptures Rafael Fernandez de Castro - Fusion
go to original November 28, 2014

Huichol Bead Artisans, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (Getty Images)
 
Mexicans have been mastering the art of paying taxes with art for over 57 years. In fact artists themselves are allowed to fulfill their economic duty to the state by handing over a portion of their work. The Pago en Especie or “Pay in Goods” program has now created a government collection that includes almost 7,000 works of art. This unique initiative has put together one of the largest contemporary art collections in the country.

I know what you’re thinking: We should all move to Mexico, and at the end of the year, hand the government childlike crayon drawings or napkin sketches. But the government has created an evaluation committee which has the daunting – and maybe impossible – task of determining what constitutes valuable art.

However, the committee is not interested in defining aesthetic taste, nor does it engage in philosophical dilemmas such as, “What is art?” In their view, the latter is answered by the market.

The requirements that have been established initially disqualify struggling artists, since the more the individual sells, the more works the government will accept as a tax substitution. Cristina Beltran, who administers the program for Mexico’s tax authority (SAT), says artists “can either hand their works to the state or donate them directly to a museum of their choice.”



...“This program is very flexible; it facilitates tax collection for the artist and can be viewed as a government subsidy,” says Beltran. Mexico’s new ambitious financial reform does not put the program at risk. “One of the modifications so far is that now artists can submit their invoices online,” she says, adding that the government has no plans to expand this subsidy to other disciplines.

Read the whole story at Fusion

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