Stephanie Barron is chief curator of modern and contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Posted on 07/24/2012 12:37:23 AM PDT by Altariel
This week’s winner of the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up contest is undoubtedly a front-page story in this morning’s New York Times. When New York art dealer Ileana Sonnabend died in 2007, she left her children a fabulous collection of modern art valued at $1 billion. Her children have already paid $471 million in estate taxes on the collection, being forced to sell off most of it to meet the bill. (This is a beautiful example, by the way, of why estate taxes should be abolished and replaced with a capital gains tax on inherited assets—the collection, an artistic whole in itself, had to be destroyed to pay the taxes due.)
But there is one item in the collection, a work by Robert Rauschenberg that cannot be sold. It contains a stuffed bald eagle and under the terms of the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the 1918 Migratory Bird Act, it is a felony to “possess, sell, purchase, barter, transport, import or export any bald eagle — alive or dead.” The estate, advised by three experts, including one from Christie’s, therefore, valued the work at zero. The IRS decided it was worth $65 million, and is demanding $29.2 million in taxes and $11 million in penalties because the heirs “inaccurately” stated its value.
The trouble, of course, is that the heirs didn’t inaccurately state its value. Anything that cannot, for whatever reason, be sold, is worth zero by economic definition. The value of anything is only what someone else is willing to pay for it. And to pay a dime for this particular artwork would be to commit a federal felony. To sell it for a dime would be to commit a federal felony.
The IRS has an “Art Advisory Panel,” that provides expert advice on the value of art works involved in estates. It was the panel that decided it was worth $65 million. Stephanie Barron, a member of the panel and an art curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said that, “It’s a stunning work of art and we all just cringed at the idea of saying that this had zero value. It just didn’t make any sense.”
It makes perfect sense and Ms. Barron’s statement is a classic example of the fallacy of the just price, that things have inherent value independent of the marketplace. They may have artistic value, emotional value, religious value, etc. But if they cannot be sold then they have no monetary value because they cannot be converted into money.
The IRS Art Advisory Board, I assume, is made up of art experts. It should add an economist to give the other board members a lesson in economics 101 when necessary. And the IRS should have someone empowered to tell the Bureau, “Are you crazy? This will make us look like idiots, and vindictive idiots at that.”
How about all the Congresscritters who, over the years, built this monster up layer upon layer with new encrustations of tax code? The IRS is supposed to be there just to administer it. But how do you administer a t*rd???
Are those the dingleberries from a buffalo hanging down there?
That is the ugliest thing in the world... UGH! I would not give you 1¢ for it...
INCLUDING the Eagle.
Donate that damn thing to the museum and take a CERTIFIED $65 million tax deduction from their taxes! Let’s see the IRS challenge that value!
Or insure the thing for $65 million and then wait for an accident........
“It’s the second tier of welfare.”
Best description of gubbament employees yet penned.
the super-rich will create trusteeships and other legal means to get out of this. The middle-class will be the ones paying...
As a tax preparer, I know exactly what the estate’s process was. When you have an ‘art’ object worth more than $5k, the taxpayer is required to have it appraised and declared at FMV (fair market value). Since this is an illegal eagle art object, there is no FMV other than $0.
Thus this IRS ruling is absurd but since this is the IRS, I repeat myself!
This seems to be a BS story. I thought that estate taxes have been zero since GW Bush tax cuts? There is something missing to this story or the family just wants sympathy.
Do your home work. The estate tax takes effect after 1.3 million. (or some inflation adjusted number.)
The IRS are vultures.
I doubt the whole of modern art is worth even $1 million. (I'd make some exceptions, but 99.9% is pure crap (sometimes quite literally))
The estate tax takes effect after 1.3 million.
Wow...Most Americans have that and more when they pass away. I thought it was everything was non taxed....Homework? What is that? My MBA was done in 2000 and have not looked at a book since....lol
This is happening to my wife and me. Her mom passed away last August after a 10 year battle with cancer. She was a well-known artist, but never actually sold much... she has a lot in museums all over, has been written about and so on.
She died without much money at all, but left behind a lot of her paintings and lithographs which will take us many years to sell.
It cost us $45K to have the works inventoried, documented, photographed and appraised by and IRS-approved appraiser. My wife and I then had to come up with $245,000 estimated estate taxes for it (we’re still working to get the thing reviewed and signed off on by the IRS).
For years my MIL had been threatening to destroy all her work so she wouldn’t bankrupt the family when she dies. Perhaps she should have done that.
Stephanie Barron is chief curator of modern and contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Wow...Most Americans have that and more when they pass away.
The post turtle has nothing on you..........
I just find it funny that your liberal friends keep saying that the Bush Tax Cuts were for the rich. 1.3 million is hardly rich today. Heck any idiot who saves from 18 on is going to have that and more. Dear God in Heave I hope you are not dumb enough to have a decent retirement....Sometimes I wonder about your mental faculties but I don’t want you suffering for sure.
The estate tax takes effect after 1.3 million.
Wow...Most Americans have that and more when they pass away.
Well...Naps, most American's don't have 1.3 million when they pass away. So you are totally out of touch there.
And I will make my final point with your incoherent sentence here...
Dear God in Heave I hope you are not dumb enough to have a decent retirement
Like I said...the post turtle has nothing on you. And you prove it over and over...........
Wow...I forgot the n after Heaven. And you are full of crap to say that people don’t have 1.3 at the end of their lives. A simple mutual fund and 166 bucks a month from 18 until 70 will EASILY give you a million. You are such a child. Always trying to cause trouble for absolutely NO REASON!!!!
Once more...this is what YOU said:
The estate tax takes effect after 1.3 million.
Wow...Most Americans have that and more when they pass away.
MOST Americans don't have 1.3 million when they die. You are totally wrong.
And then you post this incoherent post too....
Dear God in Heave I hope you are not dumb enough to have a decent retirement....
And please understand I could careless about your spelling.
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