Artist Sales Tax Exemption (S 2931)

While this bill makes one minor change in the law — creating a four-year expiration period for the granting of a sales tax exemption to Rhode Island artists for their works — the interpretation of the underlying statute itself by the Department of Revenue (DOR) and the R.I. State Council on the Arts (RISCA) has been the subject of tremendous controversy and an ACLU lawsuit. We believed this bill should serve as an opportunity for a broader review of the law’s language and implementation; any attempt to amend this law should address its application by DOR and RISCA that has created confusion in the artistic community — and particularly among authors — and undermined a major purpose of the law. This bill passed the Senate, but diedin the House.