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Does It Make Financial Sense To Donate a Car to a Charity?

Edmunds.comEdmunds.com Posts: 9,975
edited June 2017 in Editorial
imageDoes It Make Financial Sense To Donate a Car to a Charity?

You can only deduct a donated vehicle's fair market value from your taxable income under very specific conditions. Here's what you need to know.

Read the full story here


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Comments

  • cardonationguycardonationguy Posts: 1
    If your old car is running great there are lots of uses for it, but for those cars that aren't doign so well donation is a great option. When my transmission went out I donated my car. It was a solid car, but after I payed for towing and repairs I would be lucky to get what I got for donation.
  • donatecardonatecar Posts: 1
    I had an old Land Cruiser and I knew that someone would really get some enjoyment out of it yet. And although I hated to see it go, I decided to get the tax write off for car donation. Yeah, I was doing it for a deduction with the IRS but I really felt like I was helping out a lot. First off, it’s nice for the organizations to get an old car that they can actually use as a kind of a corner of the lot type vehicle to get people to look at their other cars. Hence I was helping even more! It made me happy!
  • accusedaccused Posts: 0
    No car donation doesnt make sense. You want the highest proceed there is none.Donor beware. I worked inside the auction they are crooks. The spirit of charity giving is trampled on. So what do you do Take it to a salvage yard or a distmantler. Tax donation are not meet there is insider going on.They hire vendors to devalue the condition of your giving the reports are false then they hire people to accuse inspector who go out to get high value for donors.
  • accusedaccused Posts: 0
    Send the vehicle to a distmantler I ve work for car donation inside auction and seen the abuse of the spirit of charity giving. They are ran by crooks.
  • julie298julie298 Posts: 1
    It is challenging to let go of a precious old car that is beyond even a trade-in. Delivering it right to the trash garden can be center wrenching. Creating a Car Donations to a suitable charity organisation seems like a good switch, but, unfortunately, Car Donation is an place of charity organisation that is filled with scams and deceptive details.
  • nightdiver2222nightdiver2222 Posts: 1
    Watch out for the Charity Cars thing. In the tiny print at the bottm they say there is little chance you get to deduct the fair market value. This place is just an auction broker like anywhere else. You get squat when they sell you car worth thousands for a few hundred bucks. Simply, they are disguising the fact that they DO NOT use your care for charity, or at best, a tiny chance they might.
  • andrewwayneandrewwayne Posts: 1
    edited December 2014
    Interesting article Joanne. I would just like to add the elements that are mandatory to be contained in the written acknowledgment the charity must give to the donor, in case it sells the donated vehicle. Thus, in this acknowledgement, it must be possible to identify the charity’s name, the date and location of the donation, your name (the donor's) and taxpayer identification number, vehicle identification number a description of the donated vehicle, including a statement as to whether the charity provided any goods or services in return for the car other than intangible religious benefits and, if so, a description and good faith estimate of the value of the goods and services. Hope it helps,
    Andrew W.
  • cw_macw_ma Posts: 1
    I donated a car worth $3000 on Kelly's blue book and Habitat for Humanity's Cars for Homes program sold it and received less than $500. I wish I'd known in advance that they'd get so little and would have given the car to someone who needed it.
  • lukeindclukeindc Posts: 1
    Try donating the car to a local school district's automotive repair program. Because they will make significant alterations to the car (ie fixing what's wrong with it), you can end up taking the full Fair Market Value for your car.
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