Donate Art, Save Taxes

Donate Art to Charity and Potentially Deduct More Than Your Cost Basis

It might be several weeks yet till the 2007 tax year filing deadline in mid-April, but if you intend to donate art to charity and claim a deduction for charitable giving, you only have a few days left to act. Your art donation must be made by the end of the calendar year, so act now!

This is a charitable donation that can help not only the beneficiary charity, but yourself too. The actual cost basis of the artwork has no relationship to your deduction; you can deduct the fair market value of the artwork that you donate to and IRS-approved charity.

So if you bought the artwork some time ago and it has appreciated in value, you get to deduct the appreciated value from your taxable income, not what you paid for it (your cost basis).

Or if you can acquire art at a cost that is less than the appraised fair market value (FMV), then you can deduct more than you are out of pocket.

One significant catch that you need to be aware of, however, is that you must have owned the artwork for a minimum of 12 months to qualify for the deduction.

Continue reading for more detail concerning the charitable donation of art ...

Juan Coronado Undertakes Commission for Miller Children's Hospital

Ariki Art member artist, Juan Coronado, will be painting a large triptych as a donation for Millers Children's Hospital in Long Beach, California. To be completed by the end of next year, the work will be auctioned off in a charity auction for the hospital.

Another exciting development for Juan recently is that we were contacted to provide a sample giclee print of his work "Lava Flow" for a business in Lebanon that supplies prints of original artworks to western hotel chains throughout the Middle East. The original work is a mere 8x10 inches, but the sample print was enlarged 7 times! The print will be exhibited in a mock up room, and if the work is chosen by any of the hotel chains for their rooms, it will be printed in a limited edition of 150.

If you are interested in giclee reproductions of Juan Coronado's artwork, or those of any other of our artists, contact us and we will work with you and the artist. Not all artists are willing to supply prints, but most are. After all, they have to eat and pay the bills too.

South African Artist Daniele van Eck Joins ArikiArt

Our latest member of ArikiArt Online Galleries is a young artist from the Johannesburg area of South Africa. Daniele van Eck paints primarily in acrylics and her works are typically abstract paintings and nudes.

Thank you for joining ArikiArt, Daniele, and we look forward to seeing your art. We have had a sneak preview of her talent, and know you will all be very impressed.

Welcome aboard, and every success in your career as an artist.

Artist Daniele van Eck's art blog

Tax Deduction for Fine Art Donations to Charity

It's December and you need to make charitable contributions before the end of the year to be able to deduct them against income on your 2007 tax return.

Don't forget that the 1995 Tax Act allows you to donate artwork to any IRS-approved charity at its fair market value, not at its cost basis.

In addition, this deduction falls outside of the alternative minimum tax clawback if you fall within the AMT.

Read our article on all the rules surrounding the deduction of charitable donations of art.

Max Emadi to be featured in Russian Magazine

California-based artist Max Emadi is hoping that his recent interview with Khooligan will actually one day see the watery light of day on Moscow's newsstands. If it does so, the publishers of the art, fashion, and trends magazine will be braver than Radio Free Europe which recently dropped its intended airing of an interview with Max because they decided he was too hot to handle. The problem and the attraction is Max Emadi's Islamic erotica series that features veiled Islamic women in provocative poses. So perhaps the glossy Russian magazine will shame Radio Free Europe and show them what freedom of speech is all about

Max shared with us the transcript of the interview and asked that we publish it here on Ariki Art. If you read Russian and can get your hands on the edition of Khooligan that will feature Max, then all power to you, but if you can't read Russian, or just can't wait for the Russian version to come out, you can read Khooligan magazine's interview with Max Emadi here.

Kalibaru - Gourd Art by McKenzie Birnie

ArikArt member McKenzie Birnie continues to demonstrate her wide artistic flair with her paintings and gourd art. Over the last few weeks she exhibited a selection of her gourd art at the recently opened "Packing House" in downtown Claremont, CA as part of the "Gypsy Sisters" exhibition. The focal point of the exhibition was her work "Kalibaru".

This magnificent work of gourd art by McKenzie represents a village in East Java at which she and her brother stayed during a trip to Indonesia to visit the land of their Dutch grandfather and Indonesian grandmother. McKenzie recalls the simple life of the village as representing "perfection" in its simplicity of lifestyle. The idyllic village even has a small hammock. Complete with small containers of rice and basic staples, the work becomes a shrine to simplicity and subsistence, and McKenzie comments that the artwork expresses her desire to pare back the attachments of life.

McKenzie uses a pyrographic etching tool to burn the pattern into the surface of the gourd and leather dies to apply color. The work is finished off with a UV-resistant varnish.

The work is offered for sale at $750. Use our contact link if you are interested in this work.

Slideshow of gourd artwork "Kalibaru" by McKenzie Birnie