Jean-Baptiste Colbert said, “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing.” I suspect that this is the closest that most would equate tax and the arts.
But the arts provide the livelihood of artists, and income tax applies to that livelihood as it does to other forms of income. Unusual tax issues can arise within the arts, issues which the income tax system is forced to address. This article discusses a sampling of such issues.