Any meaningful discussion of taxation focuses on the net, not on arbitrary subdivisions and labels. If art were taxed at 50% sales tax but also came with a tax deduction of 100%, I would feel real physical pain to see someone argue ‘oh, but we are discouraging and taxing heavily artwork! Just look at that 50%!’
Which is why I bring up the subsidies. If art is being hugely subsidized, then just being taxed like everything else (in your impoverished sense) still leads to art being cheaper than it should.
That may or may not be a fair point to make, but in that case your comment should have begun with “Yes, but...” instead of “No...”.
On the merits, I disagree on every point: that there is too much art, that current art subsidies are “heavy”, and that art subsidies necessarily cancel out sales taxes for the purpose of interpreting government policy (which may simply be incoherent and non-uniform).
Any meaningful discussion of taxation focuses on the net, not on arbitrary subdivisions and labels. If art were taxed at 50% sales tax but also came with a tax deduction of 100%, I would feel real physical pain to see someone argue ‘oh, but we are discouraging and taxing heavily artwork! Just look at that 50%!’
Which is why I bring up the subsidies. If art is being hugely subsidized, then just being taxed like everything else (in your impoverished sense) still leads to art being cheaper than it should.
That may or may not be a fair point to make, but in that case your comment should have begun with “Yes, but...” instead of “No...”.
On the merits, I disagree on every point: that there is too much art, that current art subsidies are “heavy”, and that art subsidies necessarily cancel out sales taxes for the purpose of interpreting government policy (which may simply be incoherent and non-uniform).