Ten Tips To Deducting Charitable Gifts
The IRS has released ten tips to help you deduct charitable gifts this tax season. When completing your Schedule A for your federal tax refund, don’t forget to take your charitable contributions as they can add up to a good sized tax deduction. Here are the rules to make sure you get the deduction:
1. Contributions must be made to qualified organizations.
2. You cannot deduct time or services, only money and gifts can be deducted.
3. Any merchandise received in exchange for a gift must reduce the value of your gift for the tax deduction.
4. Fair market value must be used for stock and property donations.
5. Items must be in good condition or better to be allowed.
6. Save your bank records for any money donations you make and save the records with your tax return.
7. Also get a written acknowledgement from the organization when you make a donation greater than $250.
8. IRS Form 8283 must be used when your property contributions exceed $500 in value.
9. You must get an appraisal when donating property valued greater than $5,000.
10. If you donated to a Midwest disaster relief area you get special benefits which you can read about in Publication 4492-B.
Ten Tips To Deducting Charitable Gifts by Steve
I think they began requiring the appraisal because people were claiming large values on cars they were donating.
Thanks for writing a thorough article about personal finance management. I learnt something new and hope to test drive your ideas soon. Awesome article!!
I purchased tickets to a dinner event and could only deduct the amount of the tickets above the costs of the meal.
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Most church organizations provide yearly documentation for cash donations which help with the record keeping quite a bit.
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Anything that means we can give more to charity in these tough enconomic times has to be a good thing.
Thanks for the post.
I genuinely appreciate all of the truly intelligent arguments that I’ve seen, and some of them are downright convincing, but on the scale of our country, harming the wealthy to benefit the poor is absolutely no way to solve the problem. If you want to make it easier on the disenfranchised, don’t lower the bar, raise the floor.
You want to make a difference? Donate to a charity, go out and volunteer, help your neighbors, be a good person. ‘Redistribution’ will never work in this country, you should know that by now
Giving charity even in the middle of difficult situation is a good sign that love still rule the world.
I think more businesses should be aware of the tax breaks on offer for donations to charities and maybe businesses would consider options they don’t realise exist.