There was a terrific piece by Graham Bowley and Patricia Cohen in the Times over the weekend on a "lucrative, little-known" maneuver for avoiding state use taxes on art.
Doesn't work in New York -- as the story notes, "collectors who live in states that don’t recognize a first-use exemption are out of luck. New York, for example, typically imposes a use tax — 8.875 percent in Manhattan — on art brought into the state by a resident, even if it is first publicly displayed elsewhere" -- but well worth reading.
