Gagosian Gallery to Pay $4.28M in Tax Settlement

(CN) - The Gagosian Gallery agreed to pay $4.28 million to settlement claims in failed to pay taxes on art sales, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Tuesday.

Schneiderman said that for at least a decade, the Gagosian's California affiliate, Pre-War Art Inc., sold and shipped nearly $40 million worth of art to and from customers n New York without collecting or remitting state and local sales taxes,

The attorney general also said that between 2012 and 2015, the gallery sold a significant amount of art in New York that was shipped out of state without paying the required taxes.

"There is one set of rules for all, and that includes art dealers and collectors," Schneiderman said in a written statement.

In a statement, the gallery said, "Although we cannot comment on the findings, we accept and will fully comply with the terms of the settlement to bring closure to this matter.

The gallery, owned by Larry Gagosian, is one of the most successful art dealerships in the world.

As part of the settlement, the gallery has agreed to set up a new shipping company of its own to ensure it complies with the letter of the law when it comes to paying sales taxes. It also agreed that Pre-war Art will provide the attorney general's office with a full accounting of its sales activities for the next six years.

In May, the New York real estate developer and art collector Aby Rosen agreed to a $7 million settlement with Schneiderman for failing to pay taxes on $80 million in works by Andy Warhol, Jean­Michel Basquiat and other artists that he had bought since 2002.

That same month, the attorney general's office announced a separate $210,000 tax settlement with Victoria Gelfand, an art dealer who is a director of the Gagosian Gallery involving works that she had bought over the past eight years through her own company.

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