Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief was introduced in April 2017 and can provide museums and galleries with a cash in-hand tax credit of up to £80,000 if they have incurred costs in producing a new exhibition open to the general public.
Who Can Claim?
The relief is available to charitable companies, or companies wholly-owned by a charity or local authority, which maintains a museum or gallery. You do not need to pay corporation tax to qualify for the relief.
Which Exhibitions Qualify?
An exhibition is a curated display of organised collection of works (or a single object or work) that are considered to be of scientific, historic, artistic or cultural interest. Members of the public must be admitted to the exhibition to qualify, but, there is no requirement for the public to be charged for admission.
There are some restrictions on what does and does not qualify for the relief; however, the majority museums and galleries opening a new exhibition are likely to qualify for the relief.
You may still be able to claim the relief even if your exhibition is a touring exhibition and has already been shown at another museum or gallery.
How Does the Relief Work?
The relief works by way of an additional deduction from the exhibition’s profit or loss. The additional deduction is based upon the qualifying expenditure – mainly the cost of producing the exhibition. This additional deduction can then be claimed as a cash-in hand tax credit from HMRC of up to £80,000.
How Can We Help?
Our experienced tax consultancy team at Armstrong Watson are well placed to assist you with your Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief claim. We can advise you on all aspects of the claim, from identifying if an exhibition qualifies for the relief through to identifying and ensuring that all qualifying costs have been included to maximise the relief available.
Contact Us
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Case Study
We recently assisted a Yorkshire-based museum with their first Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief claim for a temporary exhibition imported from Canada. As the exhibition was hired from outside the EEA and this was a significant proportion of the exhibition costs, the client was unsure if the exhibition would qualify for the relief. We were able to review all of the expenditure associated with producing the exhibition and found that there were sufficient costs incurred in the EEA to make a claim.
We assisted the client in collating the qualifying costs and in producing a report for onward submission to HMRC. Following this, we were able to make the claim on our client’s behalf which resulted in a significant repayment from HMRC despite a large proportion of the expenditure being incurred outside the EEA.
