|
|
Article: Business accounts for lives lived as 'performance art'
- Article from:
- Oakland Tribune
- Article date:
- September 29, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2006 Oakland Tribune. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
TWO PERFORMANCE artists sat at a table in Oakland one night and
talked about a friend of theirs who got in trouble with the IRS.
The friend, also an artist, had trained a parrot as part of an
installation. That was the art. He then sold the piece to the di Rosa
Preserve, a collection in Napa. That was the income source. He bought
vegetables to feed the parrot, and because the food was a component
of his business, he deducted it from his taxes. That was the problem.
"The IRS didn't like that," said Sean Fletcher, one of the Oakland
artists. "They have been on his case every year since."
Fletcher and his wife, Isabel Reichert, also an artist, began to
think about what paying taxes meant for ...