A visit to the solicitor

Earlier this month the three Trustees went to see our solicitor. These visits are infrequent, and in between them we tend to forget the complex information (to us anyway) imparted on such things as our taxation status. So every so often we go back for a refresher visit. Fortunately Stephen Parr at Woodcocks is an excellent communicator, and we leave feeling - at least temporarily - wiser and more knowledgable. 

But now we're looking ahead to the situation in 2019, 10 years after the Trust was established, when there is a tax review of the estate. Even our solicitor acknowledges that the calculations involved in this are highly complex - and a simple top-of-the-head calculation is impossible to produce. This was our main field of inquiry on this visit, and we were promised an estimate of its impact once Woodcocks had run the necessary data through their software. 

Last weekend the results arrived. Given we've no idea of what the value of Dave's Estate will be in 2019 it was based on guesswork, but the results were scary - a possible tax burden of £75,000 or more. 

Best to be prepared of course, and this is all 6 years away, but the issue is clearly a serious one. We don't understand, if I'm totally honest, a lot of this. It appears that an estate is taxed on this basis every 10 years, so the same items get taxed over and over. Can this be right? It also means that if our work to enhance Dave Pearson's reputation is successful then we're also increasing the tax burden for ourselves - and remember that this is a tax on work unsold as well as work sold, so it isn't as if we've earned any income which can be set against the tax. 

Anyway, as you can imagine, these issues, and other related questions, are all very much on our minds. Over the next few months we'll be going through this territory in more detail. With the help of Stephen Parr and his colleagues. I'll keep you posted.

A birthday

Being trustees of the Dave Pearson Trust has taken us on a number of interesting journeys over the past few years - getting involved in the making of the 'To Byzantium' film; various shennanigans involving tv and radio broadcasts; and the curating of a large exhibition of Dave's work in London - among other things. 

The curating part was trustee Margaret Mytton working in close partnership with the writer and critic Edward Lucie-Smith (above), and a few days ago we were invited to the Albermarle Gallery in London to be part of a gathering to celebrate Edward's 80th birthday. 

Edward, who got to hear about Dave Pearson's work through Derek Smith when he was directing the film, has since been a great champion of Dave's work and was instrumental in organising the London exhibition last year. 

It was clear from the people we met at the party that Edward is also a tireless supporter of young artists from all sorts of backgrounds - his interest and championing of art in developing countries, in his native Jamaica, in Iran, and young artists at the beginning of their careers in this country. This was reflected in the people we met at the Albermarle, and in a short speech Edward made, not only about the changing shape of the 'art world', but in the radical changes and opportunities opening up by the revolution in IT and the internet.

So a happy 80th birthday Edward, from all of us at the Dave Pearson Trust.