News. Lluís Peñuelas publishes an interdisciplinary taxation analysis of the market value of works of art

June 2005

Published by Marcial Pons under the title Valor de Mercado y Obras de Arte (Market Value and Works of Art), the book sets out to narrow down precisely the legal concept of market value of movable goods and to lay down the steps to be followed in Spain in order to carry out painstaking and objective valuations of the market value of works of art, as well as to lay down the content of the verdicts on their valuations, whether or not issued during the course of taxation, government or legal proceedings. It is mainly aimed at art-world and economy professionals who work on the valuation of artistic works or are involved in running the art market. This involved a writing style far-removed from the usual language of financial and taxation law, and inclusion –in the form of end-of-chapter notes– of legal-scientific and administrative doctrine, jurisprudence and positive regulations, whose postulates and propositions can make them difficult to understand.

Lluís Peñuelas i Reixach is a tenured lecturer in Financial and Taxation Law. For the last fourteen years he has been combining his academic and research work with his post as General Secretary of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, and it is this that has led his latest books to deal with the tax issues inherent to the law as it relates to art and culture: El pago de impuestos mediante obras de arte y bienes culturales (Taxation Payment using Works of Art and Cultural Assets, published in 2001), Manual jurídico de los museos (Legal Handbook for Museums, published in Spanish- and Catalan-language editions in 1998). Other books of his are La docencia y el aprendizaje del Derecho en España. Una perspectiva de Derecho comparado (Law Teaching and Learning in Spain. A Comparitive Law Perspective) and Poder financiero y federalismo en los Estados Unidos (Financial Power and Federalism in the United States).