Would your venue qualify for the Tax Abatement?

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Over the last couple of years, the Community Boards have done some amazing work on the Tax Abatement proposal that would benefit smaller performing arts venues. This proposal would give incentives to landlords that either donate or rent at below market value to non-profit performing arts organizations. The money saved on taxes would then be passed on to the renter (you). The proposal could potentially save smaller theatre venues thousands of dollars a year.

The Theatre and Arts task forces on the Community Boards have been working very hard on this proposal and in May of 2010, it reached a significant mile stone when all 12 of the Manhattan Community Boards voted in support of it. It was an unprecedented happening.

The proposal was shared with several elected officials who have been very supportive, but have asked some important questions that need to have solid answers before we can move to the next step.

Several organizations (A.R.T./New York, The Innovative Theater Foundation, Institute for Culture in the Service of Community Sustainability and The League of Independent Theater) are all cooperating to try to help collect this very important information and enable the proposal to continue to move forward.

We are asking that companies that could qualify for this proposal (once it is enacted) complete an online questionnaire.

If you can answer "YES" to each of the following questions, your organization could qualify and should complete the online form.

1. Are you a Not-For-Profit organization (Do you have your 501(c)3status)?
2. Do you lease and manage your space (Is your organization the primary lease holder for your venue)?
3. Do you manage at least one (1) performance venue?
4. Do you present your own artistic work/season?
5. Do you pay pass-through tax? (This is the amount that is added to your rent and should be indicated on your lease or monthly/quarterly statements.)
   OR
   Is your landlord a commercial (for-profit) entity?

If you can answer "Yes" to each of the 5 questions above, then we would strongly encourage you to complete the questionnaire:

LINK TO QUESTIONNAIRE: http://bit.ly/i4SJZP


I want to assure you that completed questionnaires are held in the strictest of confidences. We are very mindful of sensitive information. We will not share or release any specific details about your organization. This information is necessary to establish actual figures and will only be presented without specific identifiers and as an aggregation or average of the overall data collected.

This information is invaluable to the process and I greatly appreciate you taking the time to complete the questionnaire.

LINK TO QUESTIONNAIRE: http://bit.ly/i4SJZP

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