This story has gotten a fair amount of attention elsewhere, but I want to highlight one aspect of it.
Ileana Sonnabend was a noted NYC art dealer who passed away in 2007. Her children inherited her art collection, which was valued at $1 billion. So far, her heirs have paid $471 million in estate taxes on the collection, selling off a large part of it to do so.
One of the pieces in the collection is a Robert Rauschenberg piece called “Canyon”.
Because the work, a sculptural combine, includes a stuffed bald eagle, a bird under federal protection, the heirs would be committing a felony if they ever tried to sell it. So their appraisers have valued the work at zero.
The IRS values “Canyon” at $65 million, and wants the family to pay $29.2 million in tax.
“The ruling about the eagle is not something the Art Advisory Panel considered,” [Stephanie] Barron [senior curator of 20th-century art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art] said, adding that the work’s value is defined by its artistic worth. “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.”
But doesn’t the fact that the work can’t be sold make it of zero value anyway? Sort of by definition? And is Ms. Barron confusing aesthetic value with market value?
[Ralph E.] Lerner [lawyer for the heirs] said that since the children assert the Rauschenberg has no dollar value for estate purposes, they could not claim a charitable deduction by donating “Canyon” to a museum. If the I.R.S. were to prevail in its $65 million valuation, he said the heirs would still have to pay the $40.9 million in taxes and penalties regardless of a donation.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2012 at 7:34 am and is filed under Art, Clippings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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