Financing
How is Visões Úteis financed?
Visões Úteis is funded by the Portuguese State through the Directorate General of Arts. This funding is vital for the development of our activity and represents around 50% of our annual budget. The Portuguese State finances artistic creation as it considers it a public good, such as health, education, science, the environment, agriculture, security or national defence. And the financing of public goods allows their development without being constrained by the logic of markets. This allows, in the case of artistic creation, that it evolves in a permanent critical gesture of the world and in a way accessible to the general population. Basically, Visões Úteis is a private company that performs, from the point of view of public finances, an activity similar to that of a school or hospital.
The remaining 50% of Visões Úteis' revenues come from very different origins, namely:
- Co-productions: National and foreign entities that decide, in advance, to bear part (eventually all) of the cost of a project. Here we can find theatres, foundations, federations, educational institutions, municipalities and even the European Union (Creative Europe and Erasmus + programmes) in a complex intersection of (more) public and private capital. But always justified by the crossing of the objectives of these entities with those of Visões Úteis.
- Sales: A relatively simple situation in which an entity (public or private) buys a Visões Úteis show/activity because they want to present it to their audience. It can be an entity that programs regularly (a municipal theater or a Festival, for example), occasionally (an educational institution or municipality, for example) or even sporadically (a single event or even, and in a completely private capacity, a person in individual name, for example). Here too public and private money intersect.
- Support: These are, essentially, private entities that provide services for free or offer/lend products. This is in exchange for the public mention of this support. These entities opt for this involvement, essentially, because they consider that it benefits their image.
- Patronage: The business culture and the current tax regime do not facilitate the operation of this type of financing (at least on the scale in which our projects are developed, which is relatively small). Even so, we can point out, as an example, a case of success, within the scope of a project to apply the arts to Asperger Syndrome Therapeutics.
- Other revenue: This includes ticket revenue, tuition fees for our theater courses, the sale of publications and merchandising and any possible provision of services related to the skills/resources of our team (material rental, training, etc.). Naturally, and considering the effort already made by citizens/taxpayers in financing the public service of which we are agents, the possibilities for growth of this item are self-limited, and the logic by which commercial agents or entities are guided does not apply here .
And who controls our management of public money (your money)?
Annually, Visões Úteis prepares activity reports and accounts for the General Directorate of Arts, having previously submitted the plan and budget to approval. And our work is closely monitored by a Monitoring Committee that ensures that our activity complies with what was agreed with the State, under the terms of the respective public tenders and contracts.
All other contracting, namely with public entities, is also subject to contracts, reports and accountability and depends, to a great extent, on proof of regular status with Finance and Social Security, as well as on the presentation of proof of Criminal Record.
The Accounting of Visões Úteis is organized under the legal terms by a company in the sector (SSC, Gestão e Contabilidade). All movements are documented and susceptible to verification by the competent authorities, namely by the bank in which we have an account; We generally take good practice in not making or accepting cash payments, so that all transactions are properly documented.
Visões Úteis, in legal terms, is a non-profit, Private Law Cultural Association. And it is, in legal terms, exempt from IRC and VAT. In practical terms - and with regard to VAT - Visões Úteis is a final consumer, bearing the tax without the right to any refund whenever it buys; but not billing tax when selling.
Visões Úteis is a Public Utility Legal Entity under the terms of Dispatch nº 11156/2010 of June 25, 2010 by the Secretary of State of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, published in Diário de República, 2nd series - Nº131 - on July 8, 2010. In these terms, our activity, in particular the accounts, is also supervised by the Council of Ministers.
Visões Úteis has its situation regularized with the tax authorities and Social Security and complies with the labor law, entering into employment contracts under the terms of the legislation in force, namely with actors and technicians.
Do you want to support the activity of Visões Úteis?
Before doing so, you should remember that, if you are a Portuguese citizen, you already support it through the taxes you pay and that you can prolong this effort simply by purchasing, for example, a ticket for a show.
And if you want to participate even more, you can - in your IRS declaration - consign 0.5% of the taxes you pay to support our activity. In this way you will be directly co-producing our project. For this, just fill in table 11 in the declaration, on the Cover sheet of Model 3, and in field 1103 place our NIF 503 285 315. But remember that the entities to which you can assign 0.5% of your IRS are immense and remarkable; we are talking not only about organizations in the cultural sector but also about organizations linked to health, human rights, environment etc... so think twice before entering a TIN for consignment.
However, if you really want to become a patron of Visões Úteis, you should contact us to discuss the best way to do so and the respective tax framework.