Tax dodge of the week: avoiding the new tax on art

Thinking of selling a piece of art from your collection? Here's how to avoid paying 'droit de suite' - the latest EU tax wheeze to hit the UK...

If you are about to sell a work of art from your collection, beware the latest EU tax to hit these shores, an art tax known as droit de suite'. The levy will apply to works sold for €1,000 or more and will fund artists' royalties.

Charles Dupplin, head of art at the insurer Hiscox, says "the tax means that 4p out of every £1 raised by the sale of a modestly priced work of art will be confiscated". If you sell a piece of artwork for up to €50,000, you will have to pay the tax at 4%. It is then levied on a sliding scale on works worth up to €2m.

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Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.