UK celebs call for tax on iPhones & Macs to help fund creative arts
A number of major artists and stars in the UK, including Oscar winner Olivia Colman, have called for a tax to be placed against devices like the iPhone to raise millions of pounds to help fund artists.

Launched on Monday, the Smart Fund is proposed as a way to raise up to 300 million pounds ($415 million) per year, which will go towards funding creative industries in the United Kingdom. To achieve this, the project offers that a small levy could be applied to technology sales in the country.
A levy of between 1% and 3% of the sales value of smartphones, computers, and other devices that are "built to allow people to store and download content" is proposed, which would be fed into a central fund, and then distributed to content producers.
The fund believes this will help creators "sustain a living from their content, support and bring together communities, and put different parts of the UK on an equal footing." It also claims that existing similar projects exist in 44 countries around the world, collectively raising 930 million pounds ($1.29 billion) in 2018 alone.
Celebrity backers include Olivia Colman, Imelda Staunton, Yinka Shonibare, Sir Frank Bowling, and Rachael Whiteread, among others. There are also claims that the Smart Fund is an opportunity to help creators across the country who were negatively affected by COVID-19, due to the closure of venues and cancellation of events.
"Working with the tech industry and innovators in this sector, we want to support creators and performers, to rebuild and enable the UK's world-leading cultural heritage, tourism, and creative industries and contribute to its soft power and international standing," according to Design and Artists Copyright Society chief executive Gilane Tawadros. "The arts provide sustenance to the engine room of cultural regeneration, recovery and renewal for the whole country"
While the project has received considerable attention in the country in a short space of time, it seems that it serves more as a call to action rather than an official proposal to the UK government itself. The UK also has numerous existing projects for funding the arts, including grants from regional Arts Councils funded by the National Lottery.
Critics are also concerned that it may appear as a tax on consumer spending. "It is an arbitrary tax on consumers that is hugely bureaucratic to manage, and with no transparency on how funds are disbursed and spent," said a spokesperson for Tech UK to the BBC, adding that consumers may ask why they have to pay an extra tax on top of "a significant amount of VAT."
In 2019, the UK parliament reckoned arts and culture contributed 10.47 billion pounds ($14.5 billion) to the economy, helping to fund an estimated 226,000 jobs.
While devices that can view content is seemingly the target of the campaign, there is the argument that major firms funding the content in the first place could be a source of additional funding. For example, it is estimated Netflix spent 260 million pounds (360 million) on the first two seasons of the drama "The Crown," a show which stars Colman, with the service also planning to spend $17 billion on new content globally in 2021.
Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast -- and get a fast news update from AppleInsider Daily. Just say, "Hey, Siri," to your HomePod mini and ask for these podcasts, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too.If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple's Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.

Launched on Monday, the Smart Fund is proposed as a way to raise up to 300 million pounds ($415 million) per year, which will go towards funding creative industries in the United Kingdom. To achieve this, the project offers that a small levy could be applied to technology sales in the country.
A levy of between 1% and 3% of the sales value of smartphones, computers, and other devices that are "built to allow people to store and download content" is proposed, which would be fed into a central fund, and then distributed to content producers.
The fund believes this will help creators "sustain a living from their content, support and bring together communities, and put different parts of the UK on an equal footing." It also claims that existing similar projects exist in 44 countries around the world, collectively raising 930 million pounds ($1.29 billion) in 2018 alone.
Celebrity backers include Olivia Colman, Imelda Staunton, Yinka Shonibare, Sir Frank Bowling, and Rachael Whiteread, among others. There are also claims that the Smart Fund is an opportunity to help creators across the country who were negatively affected by COVID-19, due to the closure of venues and cancellation of events.
"Working with the tech industry and innovators in this sector, we want to support creators and performers, to rebuild and enable the UK's world-leading cultural heritage, tourism, and creative industries and contribute to its soft power and international standing," according to Design and Artists Copyright Society chief executive Gilane Tawadros. "The arts provide sustenance to the engine room of cultural regeneration, recovery and renewal for the whole country"
While the project has received considerable attention in the country in a short space of time, it seems that it serves more as a call to action rather than an official proposal to the UK government itself. The UK also has numerous existing projects for funding the arts, including grants from regional Arts Councils funded by the National Lottery.
Critics are also concerned that it may appear as a tax on consumer spending. "It is an arbitrary tax on consumers that is hugely bureaucratic to manage, and with no transparency on how funds are disbursed and spent," said a spokesperson for Tech UK to the BBC, adding that consumers may ask why they have to pay an extra tax on top of "a significant amount of VAT."
In 2019, the UK parliament reckoned arts and culture contributed 10.47 billion pounds ($14.5 billion) to the economy, helping to fund an estimated 226,000 jobs.
While devices that can view content is seemingly the target of the campaign, there is the argument that major firms funding the content in the first place could be a source of additional funding. For example, it is estimated Netflix spent 260 million pounds (360 million) on the first two seasons of the drama "The Crown," a show which stars Colman, with the service also planning to spend $17 billion on new content globally in 2021.
Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast -- and get a fast news update from AppleInsider Daily. Just say, "Hey, Siri," to your HomePod mini and ask for these podcasts, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too.If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple's Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.
Comments
"People won't buy my artwork. I want the government to make them buy it!"
As a novel approach, how about you yarts people produce some art people might be prepared to you know, pay for?
And if this was remotely true:
There is absolutely no need for such a tax, unless of course one wants to develop an inefficient and bureaucratic way to maintain otherwise chip fryers with the lifestyle they think they deserve, if not earn.
I suggest that if tech companies are expected to contribute, then creators and performers, particularly the higher earning ones, should also. That's collaboration.
I reckon it is your civic duty to pirate Arts Council funded stuff on Channel BT.
Ah ah ah ah ah ah!
"Go fund yourself!"
Option 2 - Use their influence to promote it directly.
Not an option - force other people to pay for it.
So, thanks, but no thanks!
Basically, this group is asking for more taxes and more government spending on their special interest. It is neither criminal nor immoral to ask for more taxes and more government spending. But it's self serving when such requests come from special interest groups who are only concerned with themselves. I prefer listening to people who are concerned with the whole system and the big picture.
Governments set their own budgets, they know what money comes from where, and they're perfectly capable of regulating that, and can be held accountable if they don't. And it's certainly possible to have more than one "bag".
As someone involved in the arts in the UK, I can confirm that there are two major issues in the current British arts landscape.
The first issue is a general lack of funding: since 2000ish, the vast majority of our most successful actors, writers, comedians, musicians, artists etc have all come from privileged backgrounds. This is no coincidence: one requires a reasonable private income (ie from rich parents) in order to be able to start a career in the arts. This naturally restricts the diversity of the arts world, and makes our artistic landscape much the poorer - many talented creatives are unable to even consider getting a career off the ground.
Secondly, enjoyment of the arts is increasingly becoming available only to the privileged. Theatre tickets cost a fortune (even at festivals such as the Edinburgh Fringe!); concert tickets are extortionate; exhibitions are surprisingly costly and original artwork is prohibitively so. This is generally not a result of greed (at least, not in all cases!), but rather because our economy is tilted against artisan craftsmanship and personal creation. If you can only fit a small number of people in the theatre, you have to charge a lot for tickets simply to pay the salaries of all those needed to mount the play. It's a matter of great personal sadness to me, the arts thus being put out of the reach of so many: kids from poorer backgrounds have never been to the theatre or a live concert! This was the case even before the pandemic; it is especially so now, and is a situation that really does need to change. The arts are such an essential part of our culture (Apple, for instance, would never have existed without a whole plethora of artists inspiring Steve Jobs and the team in myriad different ways, as you will all be aware).
The second issue demonstrates that the solution to the first issue cannot be to simply 'charge more for art' or 'make something people want to pay more for', as suggested by some people above.
As I said at the top, I haven't considered the pros and cons of the 'Smart Fund' proposal, so I am certainly not attempting to express an opinion about whether it is a good or bad idea. I'm just pointing out that there is a problem with the arts in the UK, and a state-sponsored financial solution is probably the only way to solve said problem. Contrary to the general tone of the dismissive comments above, I don't believe the premise of this campaign is flawed.
Trying to disguise this as a tax on the “rich technology companies who are obviously swimming in money” is total bullshit. They are simply trying to get consumers to fund their personal causes for their own self interests. The fact that “iPhones and Macs” is thrown up as chaff doesn’t mean a damn thing. They could as easily have said “dog collars” or “teeth whitening strips” and their intentions would be exactly the same - they want your money and they want to use the government’s universal go-to money harvesting process to extract it from your wallet.
When people in our country have to use food banks, I think the last thing anyone wants is a tax on their phones to rub the egos of rich celebrities.
I added the quotation marks to fix this.