Key Tax Bills Introduced

Monday, April 18, 2016

In the weeks leading up to "tax day," Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) reintroduced the long-standing Artist-Museum Partnership Act (H.R. 4948) that would allow artists the same tax benefits as other Americans as it relates to donations of works of art, including literary, musical, artistic, or scholarly compositions given to and retained by a nonprofit collecting institution. Last year during the same week, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) sponsored a bill in the U.S. Senate, S. 931. The reintroduction is timely as work on comprehensive tax reform continues. Last week, before an audience of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) discussed his work for a U.S. House tax “blueprint” by June, building off of the previous Congress' "Camp draft."

Also, in the U.S. Senate, new, bipartisan legislation expressing the importance of not diminishing the “full scope and value” of the charitable deduction during upcoming tax reform efforts was introduced by Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Chair and Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, respectively. Entitled, Charities Helping Americans Regularly Throughout the Year (CHARITY) Act (S.2750), the legislation outlines a number of provisions to encourage year-round charitable giving. Americans for the Arts and Americans for the Arts Action Fund signed a letter with the Charitable Giving Coalition in support of the bill's position on preserving the charitable deduction.