There is nothing quite so unedifying as watching the very rich trying to wriggle out of paying what, for them, amounts to a paltry sum in tax.
With the exception, perhaps, of the spectacle of museum and gallery directors leaping to their defence with tenuous excuses as to why they should be let off said tax burden.
But that is what happened last month when Mark Jones, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, wrote on behalf of the National Museum Directors' Conference to the new secretary of state for culture and the chancellor to express concern about the impact of tax changes for non-domiciled UK residents on museums.
Before your eyes start to glaze over, it's a relatively simple argument. The government wants non- domicillaries who have lived in the UK for at least seven years to pay a fixed annual sum of £30,000.
Some sources reckon this "punitive" duty might force more than half of the "non-doms" to leave the country. According to reports, some of the biggest donors to museums and galleries are non-domicillaries.
Consequently, some museum and gallery directors, mainly in London, are worried that they would no longer be prepared to dig deep to fund museum and gallery capital projects and acquisitions.
So should museums be worried? Directors are not usually shy about wooing donors and asking them for cash - wherever they live. Last year the Tate held one of its biggest and most successful overseas fundraising events in New York.
And despite the economic gloom, big donors are still forthcoming; earlier this year, US billionaire Randy Lerner gave £5m to the National Portrait Gallery, for which he will get his name splashed across the ground-floor galleries.
Most of us have to pay tax, and skipping off to another country to avoid paying, is not an option. It's not the politics of envy to say that people who live here should pay taxes - it's a principle by which most of us are happy to abide.
Sharon Heal, editor
sharon@museumsassociation.org
See news on p11 and patrons feature on p38
With the exception, perhaps, of the spectacle of museum and gallery directors leaping to their defence with tenuous excuses as to why they should be let off said tax burden.
But that is what happened last month when Mark Jones, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, wrote on behalf of the National Museum Directors' Conference to the new secretary of state for culture and the chancellor to express concern about the impact of tax changes for non-domiciled UK residents on museums.
Before your eyes start to glaze over, it's a relatively simple argument. The government wants non- domicillaries who have lived in the UK for at least seven years to pay a fixed annual sum of £30,000.
Some sources reckon this "punitive" duty might force more than half of the "non-doms" to leave the country. According to reports, some of the biggest donors to museums and galleries are non-domicillaries.
Consequently, some museum and gallery directors, mainly in London, are worried that they would no longer be prepared to dig deep to fund museum and gallery capital projects and acquisitions.
So should museums be worried? Directors are not usually shy about wooing donors and asking them for cash - wherever they live. Last year the Tate held one of its biggest and most successful overseas fundraising events in New York.
And despite the economic gloom, big donors are still forthcoming; earlier this year, US billionaire Randy Lerner gave £5m to the National Portrait Gallery, for which he will get his name splashed across the ground-floor galleries.
Most of us have to pay tax, and skipping off to another country to avoid paying, is not an option. It's not the politics of envy to say that people who live here should pay taxes - it's a principle by which most of us are happy to abide.
Sharon Heal, editor
sharon@museumsassociation.org
See news on p11 and patrons feature on p38
