Car Donation and Tax Deduction

Before 2005, the appeal of donating cars to charity was an idea that a lot of people considered. Old cars, which would not fetch a fair market price, would be donated to charity. In doing so, more valuable tax exemptions are met rather than going through the rigors and tiresome process of having the car appraised, maintained, and sold. Car donors would as get as much as a 100% mark-up value reflected in their tax exemptions compared to the price their beat-up cars would fetch when (and if) sold. Due to this great trade-off, more and more people started donating their old cars to charity since doing so provided a heftier financial benefit to themselves. It is along these lines that the IRS revised the tax benefits that one can take advantage of when donating vehicles.

The New Car Donation Tax Law was made effective on January 1, 2005. It states that only if the claimed value of a donated vehicle, such as a car, a boat or a plane exceeds $500.00 and is then sold by the charitable institution of choice, the taxpayer would be limited only to the gross proceeds of the sale. Furthermore, the charitable organization is given 30 days to issue a receipt of sale of the donated vehicles, if sold by the organization. The said receipt must reflect the amount of gross proceeds.

In the event that the charitable organization uses the vehicle and materially improves it, the charity must also provide receipt of the improvisations undertaken, purpose and duration of vehicle use. In the same way, the charitable institution is given 30 days to accomplish such. In this case, the donor may deduct the vehicle's market value.

Moreover, the new law prohibits donors/taxpayers from estimating the value of their vehicles by themselves for a write-off of over $500. More stringent measures are implemented by the IRS.

Currently, the IRS is working on the degree of ambiguity of the revised car donation law. More clarifications are in order to ensure that fair and equal pay-offs will benefit both the giver and the taker.

Charity Car Donations provides detailed information on Charity Car Donations, Child Charity Car Donations, Catholic Charity Car Donations, Used Car Charity Donations and more. Charity Car Donations is affiliated with Charity Car Donations.