With a Facebook campaign in full swing to “Save MONA” and an array of mainstream press articles attempting to get to the bottom of David Walsh‘s complex business tax arrangements, the arguments for Walsh pro and con have been awfully complicated. Public opinion on the Australian Tax Office’s case against the Hobart-based museum owner has been beset by a conflation of, on the one hand, Walsh’s art world philanthropy and the positive effects of MONA on Tasmania’s tourism industry, and on the other, whether the fact of Walsh’s dispute with the ATO was somehow related to the future of the museum. Ben Eltham at New Matilda has done a sterling job of pulling apart these arguments:
“MONA is not like other public art museums in Australia. Not only is it not state funded, it is not a charity or non-government organisation either. MONA’s legal structure appears to be that of a private business. The art is owned by Walsh. The gallery staff are paid by Walsh. The visitors pay a fee to Walsh.
Because of this structure, MONA is far less transparent than most large arts institutions. There is no public statement of accounts or an annual report. There is no indication of the degree to which the gallery might represent an arm of the gambling syndicate, or whether the funds invested in it were sourced ultimately from the proceeds of tax evasion, as Walsh implied on Lateline.
Moreover, MONA is not a philanthropic organisation. When rich individuals give artworks to a public gallery or institution, they derive an entirely legitimate tax deduction for it. MONA is not a public gallery, and the art remains owned by Walsh. He hasn’t given it away.
Whatever the legalities, there’s a moral point that most of Walsh’s many fans in the art world have been only too happy to ignore. Can charity wash clean the stigma of “dirty” money? And should a wonderful tourism outcome for a struggling region matter when it comes to the rights and wrongs of tax evasion?”
Read more: If MONA is our Guggenheim, does Walsh deserve a free pass?
