LATEST GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE FIGURES RELEASED

Bul­letin 6/05

Ottawa, Jan­u­ary 27, 2005 — Sta­tis­tics Canada has released the fig­ures for all three lev­els of

gov­ern­ment cul­tural spend­ing for 2002-03.  The short report can be found at

www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050127/d050127b.htm Over­all, spend­ing on cul­tural increased

by 5.2% from the pre­vi­ous year, but this was a lower rate of increase than had been

expe­ri­enced in the pre­vi­ous two years.

 

The fol­low­ing are some of the high­lights of the report.

 

Fed­eral funding

• Per capita fund­ing aver­aged out to $109.  All three ter­ri­to­ries received the highest

amounts (North­west Ter­ri­to­ries $681; Yukon $497; and Nunavut $238), fol­lowed by the

provinces of Que­bec ($154) and Prince Edward Island ($153).  The low­est per capita funding

was received in British Colum­bia ($44) and Saskatchewan ($49).

• Cul­tural indus­tries received the bulk of the fed­eral fund­ing, up 4.6% from the previous

year (17% increase since 1998–99):

• 73% went to broadcasting
• 21.1% went to the film and video indus­try (mainly Que­bec and Ontario)
• book and peri­od­i­cal pub­lish­ers received a 5% increase

 

• Her­itage received nearly a quar­ter of the total cul­tural bud­get (Ontario account­ing for the

most growth).

• Fund­ing for the per­form­ing arts increased more than 26% from the pre­vi­ous year (with

orga­ni­za­tions in Que­bec and Ontario ben­e­fit­ing the most).

Provin­cial funding

• Most of the spend­ing went on libraries (about 40%) and her­itage activ­i­ties (25%).
• Cul­tural indus­tries received 14% of the cul­ture bud­get, up 7% from the pre­vi­ous year, with Quebec’s cul­tural indus­tries receiv­ing 22% of that province’s budget.
• Fund­ing to the per­form­ing arts was up nearly 9% from the pre­vi­ous year, with Que­bec show­ing the great­est increase.   “The gov­ern­ment of Que­bec spent 16 cents of every dol­lar of its cul­ture bud­get on the per­form­ing arts…”

Munic­i­pal funding

• Libraries received approx­i­mately 75% of the total munic­i­pal cul­tural budget.

AUSTRALIA ANNOUNCES NEW TAX RULING FOR ARTISTS

The Aus­tralian Tax­a­tion Office (ATO) recently announced a new rul­ing for professional

artists.  The rul­ing, which can be found at

http://www.lawlex.com.au/files/LAWLEX%20Taxation%20Newsfeed.htm “pro­vides guidance

on the prin­ci­ples to be applied in deter­min­ing whether an artist is car­ry­ing on busi­ness as a

‘pro­fes­sional artist’”, given the “dis­tinc­tive nature of the arts pro­fes­sion”. Aus­tralian arts

orga­ni­za­tions have been lob­by­ing for such recog­ni­tion for sev­eral years, and are call­ing this

a “land­mark” rul­ing and a “bench­mark internationally”.

 

The rul­ing can be com­pared with exist­ing Cana­dian leg­is­la­tion and prac­tice, par­tic­u­larly in

how to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between pro­fes­sional artists and “hob­by­ists”.  The Cana­dian Income Tax

Act pro­vides that employed artists may deduct cer­tain expenses against their earned income.  Canadian

artists con­sid­ered to be inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors may deduct their artis­tic expenses against all of their

income, whether earned from their art or otherwise.

 

One area where the new Aus­tralian tax rul­ing and Canada’s prac­tices diverge con­cerns how Canadian

tax author­i­ties deter­mine whether the tax­payer has “a rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of mak­ing a profit” from

the artis­tic activ­ity and thus whether the tax­payer can be con­sid­ered to be “car­ry­ing on a business”.

Aus­tralia has con­cluded that what dif­fer­en­ti­ates a pro­fes­sional from an ama­teur is a commercial

motive.  If the artist intends to exploit his/her work com­mer­cially and has taken objec­tive steps in that

direc­tion, they are con­sid­ered to be “car­ry­ing on a busi­ness”.  In Aus­tralia, there is no require­ment for

an “expec­ta­tion of profit” from this artis­tic activ­ity, merely that the activ­ity has a “significant

com­mer­cial pur­pose or character.”

 

CCA INVITES ARTS ORGANIZATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS TO SIGN ON TO THE “REGINA

MANIFESTO”

CCA is receiv­ing signed sheets on a daily basis from cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions and asso­ci­a­tions, individual

artists and cul­tural work­ers, and labour groups, to the “Regina Man­i­festo” launched at its national

pol­icy con­fer­ence in Regina at the end of Novem­ber.  If you haven’t signed on to the cam­paign to stop

Canada Rev­enue Agency’s ero­sion of the self-employed sta­tus for pro­fes­sional artists, and wish to do

so, details are avail­able on our web­site at http://ccarts.ca/en/fairtax.htm.