Is Arts Funding Taxable / Tax exempt?

The following payments are exempt from tax from when they are made to an artist who has received an Artists Exemption.

• Arts Council Bursaries
• Cnuas payments made under the Aosdana Scheme
• Artists’ Resale Right Royalties
• Payments and income generated by the artworks – eg sale of work, funding to create work, artist fee to show works, contract for commission of work. 

Where funding is directly related to a work for which an individual artist has an Artists Exemption determination then the funding will be covered by the exemption. Only funding related to the creation of artworks comes in under Artist Tax Exemption, so for example if it’s funding for mentorship or collaborations it might not be tax exempt, but all expenses can be claimed against any tax owed.

Project grants (ie. where you are awarded a grant to make a particular project happen rather than the grant being given to develop your work) are different and technically they are subject to tax. But remember that only your profits are subject to tax. For the most part a project grant will be offset against the cost of undertaking the project so no profit will arise to be taxed upon. However, there may be occasions where a grant of €1,000 has been awarded for a project but you only spend €700 on carrying out the project. You should be aware that there are tax consequences of having made a ‘profit’ of €300. Similarly if you pay yourself a fee out of the grant then that will be subject to tax too.

N.B: Regardless of whether a grant or award is tax exempt or not the artist is required to record receipt of all awards, grants, scholarships and bursaries in their tax returns to Revenue.

If you are not already self employed and your funding will bring you over the income threshold of €5,000 per year, you may need to register for self assessment to declare this income to Revenue. You will also be able to apply for Artist Tax Exemption.