Freedom of information request and response
Subject: Taxpayer confidentiality
Request ref: 11046
Date of response: 29/09/2015
Supporting docs: Guidelines_Taxpayer_Confidentiality.doc
Please note: this response was correct at the time of release
Request:
DCMS tell me that you administer both the Acceptance¬in¬Lieu Scheme (AIL)
which enables taxpayers to transfer important works of art and other heritage
objects into public ownership while paying Inheritance Tax and the Cultural Gifts
Scheme (CGS).
I would therefore like to request information under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 about gifts of pre-eminent objects and works of art to the nation. In order to
assist you I am outlining my request as specifically as possible.
The date range for my request is January 2010 up until the date my request is
answered.
If you judge the request to be too costly or time consuming to fit within the FOI
limits, or if all or part of the information requested is not held in a central database
format, please reduce the date range until the request becomes manageable
within cost/time restrictions.
1)
Please provide a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file containing the full list of
all gifts of pre-eminent objects and works of art to the nation in lieu of tax and for
each object please provide (where available):
a)
The name and/or title of the object
b)
The description of the object
c)
The age of the object and/or the calender year the object
was
created in
d)
The precise day, month and calender year the object was donated on
e)
The current whereabouts of the object - for example, the full address of the
building currently housing the object
f)
The name of the person(s) who donated it
g)
The name, country/territory and “care of” address of the body corporate(s)
that donated it
Arts Council England, The Hive, 49 Lever Street, Manchester M1 1FN www.artscouncil.org.uk
Phone: 0845 300 6200 Fax: 44 (0)161 934 4426 Textphone: 44 (0)20 7973 6564 Email:enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk
Arts Council England is the trading name for The Arts Council of England. Registered charity no 1036733
h)
The financial value (£) of the object
i)
The financial value (£) of the tax relief awarded in exchange for the object
j)
The type of tax relief awarded for the donation - for example, IHT relief,
CGT relief, etc.
k)
All other non-exempt fields of information held about the object
Please release all non-exempt material.
Please indicate precisely which information has been withheld with reference to
specific exemptions contained in the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Please release all datasets in a machine-readable file format such as a Microsoft
Excel spreadsheet and all documents in a digital text file format such as a
Microsoft Word file or an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.
Response:
All the information is in the Annual reports so the exemption Section 21 of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 has been applied. Section 21 of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 – information accessible to the applicant by other means.
We are not required to provide information separately where it is already
accessible through other means, in this case our website.
All the published reports can be found here on our website at
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/supporting-museums/culturalproperty/tax-incentives/acceptance-lieu/ with the exception of some information,
as detailed below:
a) The name and/or title of the object
b) The description of the object
c) The age of the object and/or the calendar year the object was created in
d) The precise day, month and calendar year the object was donated on – the year
the object passed to the nation, i.e. when the title transferred, is given in the report.
Without excessive time and effort, the precise date cannot be provided, we are
unable to provide this detail. Under section 12(1) of the FOI Act the Arts Council is
not required to provide information requested if the work involved in obtaining the
information exceeds an appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for public
authorities is £450 as defined in reg 3(3) of the Freedom of Information and Data
Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (Regulations). The
guidance document ‘Using the Fees Regulations’ from the Information
Commissioner’s Office states that the time limit is exceeded if the time taken to
determine whether we hold, locate, retrieve and extract the information exceeds 18
Arts Council England, The Hive, 49 Lever Street, Manchester M1 1FN www.artscouncil.org.uk
Phone: 0845 300 6200 Fax: 44 (0)161 934 4426 Textphone: 44 (0)20 7973 6564 Email:enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk
Arts Council England is the trading name for The Arts Council of England. Registered charity no 1036733
hours. This roughly translates to two and half days work. Consequently we are
refusing your request on the basis that it exceeds the appropriate limit.
e) The current whereabouts of the object - for example, the full address of the
building currently housing the object - the allocation is either in the case note or, if
allocation was later, it is recorded in appendix 4. It would not be possible to give
the current location, for example, if the object is out on temporary loan.
f) The name of the person(s) who donated it – this is subject to taxpayer
confidentiality and barred by statue (Section 182 Finance Act 1989) so the
absolute exemption under Section 44 of the FOI act (please see the attachment for
further information).
g) The name, country/territory and “care of” address of the body corporate(s) that
donated it – as per (f) above.
h) The financial value (£) of the object – as per (f) above.
i) The financial value (£) of the tax relief awarded in exchange for the object
j) The type of tax relief awarded for the donation - for example, IHT relief, CGT
relief, etc. – for the Acceptance in Lieu it can only be IHT or one of its
predecessors. For CGT it can only be income tax and/or CGT but we cannot
specify which for reason or taxpayer confidentiality. If the case was an AIL or a
CGS one, it is specified in the Annual reports.
k) All other non-exempt fields of information held about the object
I hope the information being provided is helpful. I am sorry that we have not been
able to provide you with all the information that you have requested, but where we
are withholding information I hope we have explained our position clearly to you. If
you do have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me.
Arts Council England, The Hive, 49 Lever Street, Manchester M1 1FN www.artscouncil.org.uk
Phone: 0845 300 6200 Fax: 44 (0)161 934 4426 Textphone: 44 (0)20 7973 6564 Email:enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk
Arts Council England is the trading name for The Arts Council of England. Registered charity no 1036733