For art lovers, a smidgen of good news
December 12 2011
You may remember a while ago the UK government began consulting on proposals to encourage the donation of works of art. The idea was to allow you to offset a certain amount of income or capital gains tax if you gave your Poussin to the local museum. At the moment, you can enjoy a tax deduction for doing so only if you are dead, under the Acceptance-in-lieu scheme. Under the proposed new rules, you could do so while alive - but the government was proposing to retain the current overall tax allowance ceiling of £20m pa, thus providing no new money. However, hidden in George Osborne's otherwise gloomy Autumn Statement (p.51) was the excellent news that the limit will now be raised to £30m pa.
