AAM’s NSW Cultural Tax Reform Submission
August 20, 2025
Submission to The Art of Tax Reform Summit:
The Association of Artist Managers (AAM) represents Australia’s professional music managers - the critical first investors in our nation’s cultural talent pipeline. We welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the NSW Government’s Tax Reform Summit for the Creative Industries.
Artist managers work at the frontline of career development, nurturing artists from their earliest stages into export-ready global performers who generate jobs and economic return across the music industry and beyond. The Australian music industry is a $9 billion sector with immense economic and cultural significance. Yet its continued growth is constrained by structural inequities that undermine sustainability, diversity, and long-term planning capacity. Tax reform provides an opportunity to address these bottlenecks and secure a fairer, more future-proof creative economy.
This submission makes eight recommendations, three of which are new, sector-specific proposals developed by the AAM - original solutions tailored to address systemic barriers unique to music. The remaining proposals are reforms that align with those advanced by peer organisations across the arts and cultural industries.
Our three flagship recommendations are:
Make childcare on tour tax deductible for touring creative professionals.
Create an “Artist Manager Development Offset” - a tax rebate for accredited artist managers modelled on the film industry’s Producer Offset.
Extend income averaging for special professionals to artist managers.
Together, these reforms address gender equity, workforce participation, and manager sustainability - the very choke points that determine whether Australian artists can succeed on the world stage.