Consultation on extending the Basic Income for Artists scheme

Brendan Burgess

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In 2022, the government introduce a Basic Income for Artists Scheme on a pilot basis for three years. So it is running out this year.

Basic Income for the Arts

The pilot scheme will be open to eligible artists and creative arts sector workers
www.gov.ie

They have launched a consultation on renewing it which you can respond to here

https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/2025-public-consultation-BIA

The criteria were very open

  • 18 years of age or older
  • in a position to evidence their creative practice or career in the arts
  • based in the Republic of Ireland
  • tax compliant
8,000 applied.
2,000 were selected at random
They have received €325 a week. It is taxed and is considered as income for means tested social welfare payments.

Artists had to prove that they were active artists e.g. membership of a body such as Visual Arts Ireland, evidence of income from their practice e.g. a commission to make work or inclusion of the work in an exhibition.
 

Application streams:​

The scheme will have two application streams as follows:
Stream 1: Practicing Artists and Creative Arts Workers. This covers all artists and creative arts workers who can demonstrate sufficient evidence of eligibility as set out below.

Stream 2: Recently trained applicants. This streams covers recently trained artists and creative arts workers who cannot yet demonstrate that they have engaged in a creative practice where their creative work makes a key contribution to the production, interpretation or exhibition of the arts. This stream is limited to those who have completed their training in the last 5 years or who will complete their training by October 2022.
Please note: As this is a research pilot, it is important to apply to the stream which best represents your practice currently.

Further information regarding Stream 2: This stream is intended to research the impact of a basic income on those who have completed a relevant training course, graduate degree or an arts related apprenticeship who have not yet have engaged in a creative practice. A maximum of 200 places are available under this stream.
 
How much does the scheme cost the taxpayer?

€325 x 52 = €17k per participant
2,000 x €17k = €35m a year

Given that some of this will be taxable and some of it will replace social welfare payments, it would be a bit lower , but still about €30m a year.
 
It was a pilot scheme and was open for a certain period.
Artists who have graduated since 2022 were not eligible.

Artists need support most in the first few years so maybe it should be targeted more at recent graduates and early stage artists?
It should be demand based - if 8,000 artists qualify, then 8,000 artists should get it.

It should be limited to a certain number of years e.g. 5 years maximum.
While administration should be light-touch, the artists should show that they are still actively involved in arts in Ireland.
 
They already get a fairly generous tax exemption too don’t they? Not sure why both schemes are necessary.
 
mustang01 said:
They already get a fairly generous tax exemption too don’t they? Not sure why both schemes are necessary.
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The income tax exemption is limited to creative artists — actors, singers, performers of all kinds, etc don't get it.

More to the point, the income tax exemption only benefits creative artists who earn enough to have a liablity to income tax, which is not very many of them. The Basic Income scheme is of benefit to those who don't make money out of their art.
 
mustang01 said:
They already get a fairly generous tax exemption too don’t they?
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The first €50k (?) of income from art is exempt from tax.

This is not a huge benefit as most artists earn so little that they would not be paying tax.

It can be helpful to a married couple where one has a full time job so the income from art would be taxed at their marginal rate.
 
I know of someone who benefitted, and she says herself it was the final push to get her art out there. In a very high cost economy its really hard to make living making art. But its something we should strive for as a society, to support artists. Creative work is not like a career, its not always built on increasing seniority due to experience etc. So targeting at grads is a little different in this case. I'm happy to support it just like I am for loads of different things....how much are we paying to train plenty of grads who then immigrate etc (and fully aware of the multitude of reasons for that too).
 
I know two married artists that live near me, in a 2nd home btw, it's empty a lot of the time. Not short of money at all, brand new '25 car, travel all over the world for their art. One is in the same field as myself, photography, but because I'm a commercial photographer, I pay tax, pay VAT, while he does get tax exemptions (doesn't pay VAT) and gets every council grant available for artists (Creative Ireland). Not all artists are struggling.
 
mustang01 said:
They already get a fairly generous tax exemption too don’t they?
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Most artists don’t make enough income from their artistic efforts to pay tax in the first place!

I think the tax scheme has its merits, but it should be time limited. The idea that Enya is getting a tax exemption on her Spotify royalties is kind of nuts.
 
Dr Strangelove said:
The idea that Enya is getting a tax exemption on her Spotify royalties is kind of nuts
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Fun fact: the royalties that Enya receives as the composer of the music on her recordings benefit from an income tax exemption (or, at any rate, the first €50,000 received each year do). The royalties she gets as the performer of the music on her recordings are taxable in the ordinary way.

Mostly, she has to split the composing royalties with Roma Ryan, while the performing royalties are all hers.

So it may be that the bulk of her royalty income is taxable.
 
As an artist who recieves the tax exemption and fortunate enough to hit the 50k threshold i woukd say it saves me about 6k at most in tax. So this is hardly a bonanza. It reads very well from a political point of view. It was a bonanza when there was no limit to your earnings and they were tax exempt but that ended in around 2006. Just after bertie published his bestselling memoir which he qualified under tax exemption. And cecilia had a bestseller out that year too. This fortuitous timing was much remarked upon in arts circles. And then the curtain came down on the limitlesss tax exemption.

And also to hit the 50k threshold i have had to earn enough before expenses to hit the VAT threshold so i now pay VAT - the artists tax exemption is only on income tax. The VAT rate is thankfully only 13.5 otherwise it would be hard to stay trucking when i am borderline. There is not much b2b art sales in my experience.
 
blaise said:
As an artist who recieves the tax exemption and fortunate enough to hit the 50k threshold i woukd say it saves me about 6k at most in tax.
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FWIW, a single/no children PAYE earner on €50K with the usual tax credits would pay €7.2K in income tax, c. €1K in USC and c. €2K in PRSI. I.e. they'd receive just under €40K net.

 
ClubMan said:
FWIW, a single/no children PAYE earner on €50K with the usual tax credits would pay €7.2K in income tax, c. €1K in USC and c. €2K in PRSI. I.e. they'd receive just under €40K net.
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Artists' exemption is only from income tax, not USC and PRSI.
 
TomEdison said:
(or, at any rate, the first €50,000 received each year do)
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I agree her income is probably 99% taxable It seems unfair that it’s not 100% taxable like you or I thought! A fair compromise would be allowing artists to avail of these schemes for perhaps 10 years in a lifetime.

I don’t have a big issue with these culture schemes in general. Ireland is perhaps 50x more influential culturally than our population would suggest. This has big economic and non-economic benefits.

The issue is making sure it is targeted. Aosdána is for example an organisation of cranky geriatrics (I speak from personal experience) and should be wound up.
 
I'd love to see the precise rationale for artists enjoying concurrent government subsidy and tax exemption, at a time when many ordinary dual-income families can't afford health insurance after the pay their taxes.
 
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