supporting artists' professional development
NAVA campaigns and advocates for artists’ rights and the needs of the Australian visual arts sector as a whole. Since its formation in 1983, NAVA has been a powerful force in bringing about policy and legislative change to encourage the growth and development of Australian visual arts and craft.
NAVA congratulates Labor on winning the recent election and looks forward to working with them. The Labor election victory sets a new agenda for the arts and offers many important opportunities. We will be teasing out the detail of how these new developments in Labor's Visual Arts Policy can best enhance Australia’s creativity and innovation, global competitiveness and further build our cultural identity and international profile.
NAVA will be concentrating on getting outcomes in the following areas:
Information about NAVA's Campaign
COMING SOON
Information about NAVA's Campaign
COMING SOON
Information about NAVA's Campaign
COMING SOON
In 2005 a respected Sydney artist challenged the adverse findings of the Australian Tax Office (ATO) after an audit of her income tax return. She appealed the decision in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and won what is now a landmark case for all artists.
Assessing the artist’s work profile against the terms of the ATO Public Ruling: carrying on business as a professional artist (TR 2005/1), her representing lawyers( Judy Sullivan of Mallesons Stephen Jaques assisted by Delia Browne) made a persuasive case. The presiding magistrate Deputy President Block of the AAT recognised the validity and weight of the evidence including the artist’s success in bringing her work to the public, gaining government grants, residencies and international exhibition opportunities. Block held that the artist was carrying on a business consistent with the terms in the tax ruling.
Read the case (Pedley v Commissioner of Taxation) here.
NAVA has condensed the content of the ATO's Tax Ruling.
Read the full ruling.Over the course of eight years, NAVA spearheaded a successful campaign by the whole arts sector for the introduction of a Public Ruling by the Australian Tax Office (ATO), which finally came into effect in January 2005. For artists, tax accountants and staff of the ATO, it clarifies when artists are recognized as being 'in business' for income tax purposes rather than being regarded as hobbyists.
This entitles artistic creators in any discipline to claim their arts practice expenses against all forms of income. The Ruling acknowledges the validity of using a broad range of arts industry criteria rather than just profit making in determining artists' professional status. NAVA’s work was made possible through the expertise provided by pro bono by lawyer Judy Sullivan assisted by Jill Savage, both of Mallesons Stephen Jaques as well as Delia Browne previous director of the Arts Law Centre of Australia.
Inquiry into the Australian Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Sector (Myer Inquiry)
As a result of an intensive lobbying campaign spearheaded by NAVA, the federal Government agreed to conduct an Inquiry into the Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Sector (the Myer Inquiry).
Read NAVA's submission to the Inquiry
In 2003, NAVA celebrated the successful outcomes of its campaign which delivered an increase of $39 million in funding from federal, state and territory governments over four years, 2004 – 7 as well as a number of other recommendations for policy and legislative change.
Information on NAVA's Campaign
COMING SOON
More information is available at www.copyright.org.au/U26782
