Back in 2006, an oddly-named London modern art gallery called Haunch of Venison decided to display Flavin's 1973 work Six Alternating Cool White/Warm White Fluorescent Lights Vertical and Centred along with Bill Viola's 1995 work Hall of Whispers. Both of these works had to be imported from the United States. They were shipped with the customs classification of 'works of art,' which benefit from a special EU value-added (sales) tax of 3.7%.
But when the works arrived at the UK border, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs decided that the assortment of fluorescent lights and projectors that made up the installations were not art but rather light fittings and audiovisual equipment. They were charged the normal tax rate of 17.5%. But bizarrely, while classifying the materials as 'not art' for the purpose of their tax rate, they decided to assess the value of the components based not on their worth as light fittings and video equipment but on their market value as works of art - a huge amount of money.
