The upcoming budget is likely to do away with the perennially under-threat tax exemption for artists in Ireland. The exemption allows artists (including writers and presumably animators - hmm, maybe I should research this) not to pay tax on earnings from their artworks.The fallacy seems to persist that artists are rolling around on their cash mattresses, yucking it up at the taxpayer's expense. Anybody who's ever tried to get money out of a film producer can attest that this is not the case.
The most recent research on working conditions in the theatre estimated the average working wage in the theatre to be about €22,000 per annum. And that was in the good times. (Yeah, I did do some research on this.) Hardly worth getting out of bed for dahling.
Artist types fear that they will effectively be 'put of business' by such a move. The National Campaign for the Arts aims to make policy-makers at least think twice about it. Why not sign their petition?
The interweb is great for this kind of thing.
(via Hilary, Long Stone Comics)
Photo courtesy of Jaqian on Flickr
