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Don’t Blame the Russians, Tax Judge Tells Sotheby’s Expert

April 24, 2017
brueghel_irs

Pieter Brueghel

As a current member of the IRS’s Art Advisory Panel I found Colin Moynihan’s article in The New York Times very interesting.  In this instance, it appears that Sotheby’s had a vested interest, or should we say a conflict of interest, in giving a low estate valuation on a couple of Old Master paintings.  According to the article,  when a Sotheby’s official [George Wachter] appraised a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Younger in 2005, he set its value at $500,000. But when the owner of the 17th-century work, “St. George’s Kermis With the Dance Around the Maypole,” sold it at a Sotheby’s auction in 2009, it drew more than four times that amount, or $2.1 million.  When the estate claimed the lower values, the I.R.S. challenged it and the case ended up in court.

Well, the United States Tax Court judge Joseph H. Gale sided with the I.R.S. on this one … you can read his decision here: Memorandum Findings of Fact and Opinion.

Source: Don’t Blame the Russians, Tax Judge Tells Sotheby’s Expert – The New York Times

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