Taxpayers will have to cough up the cash since the state declined to acquire the works for public collections
(via The Art Newspaper. By Belén Palanco. Published online: 22 January 2015}
Francisco de Goya’s Tobias and the angel, around 1787, Museo del Prado
The Spanish Government did not accept any art in lieu of tax in 2014 because the administration did not consider the works submitted as payment to have any artistic value or historic interest to public collections.
The State tends to be picky about its art and many of its acquisitions in lieu of tax were by key artists from Spanish art history. These works, largely from corporations and banks, have swelled the collections of the Prado and Reina Sofia museums. For example, between 2002 and 2003, the State acquired four masterpiece by Francisco de Goya from the savings bank Caja Madrid that went to the Museo del Prado, including Holy Family and Tobias and the angel in lieu of €3.5m in taxes and Young St John the Baptist in the desert (€4.2m). The Prado received another work by Goya in 1995 in lieu of tax from Bankinter.
Other works accepted by the State which went to the Prado include The Crucifixion, one of the most significant works by the anonymous Early Netherlandish artist known only as “Juan de Flandes” (John of Flanders), through Ferrovial (€7m in 2005); Lucas Cranach’s Virgin and Child, St John and Angels, from the collection of Juan Abelló in 1988; and around 40 still-lifes (€26m in 2006) from the collection of Rosendo Naseiro, acquired through the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Foundation.
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