Donating a vehicle to charity

[Donald]

I am looking at donating my 33 yr old boat. To Boat Angel. WIll get a tax deduction. The NADA price is about $4000 to $4500. They put it on EBAY sell it and the buyer picks it up at your house. But the tax deduction you get is only what they sell it for. Which is often only a few hundred. Now if they do a "material improvement" then you can deduct the NADA value. Or so they say.

Any one donated a vehicle to charity?

 

[ripcord]

Yeah, but only family members vehicles which required more in repairs to make road worthy than they were worth.

Instead of using a charity, why don't you see if a local boat dealer will sell yours on consignment? That way you're more likely to get closer to fair .market value for it. Then you can make a cash donation to your charity of choice and be sure to get your full tax deduction?

 

[Donald]

Few want a 33 yr old boat. I am not sure how quickly it would move on consignment. I need to move from NY and don't want to be screwing around with trying to sell a boat while packing.

PLUS - wife wants it gone. Wife is giving the thumbs up for a much newer and slightly longer boat.

 

[doublebase]

Well, I haven’t personally donated a vehicle to charity but I work a t a place that takes/needs donations and let me tell yeah, our donation went way down with the new tax laws. Vehicles are no longer a right off. Boats must be different.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

Wife is giving the thumbs up for a much newer and slightly longer boat.

Don't they all?

 

[Wolf359]

I am looking at donating my 33 yr old boat. To Boat Angel. WIll get a tax deduction. The NADA price is about $4000 to $4500. They put it on EBAY sell it and the buyer picks it up at your house. But the tax deduction you get is only what they sell it for. Which is often only a few hundred. Now if they do a "material improvement" then you can deduct the NADA value. Or so they say.

Any one donated a vehicle to charity?

So why don't you cut out the middleman, put it on eBay, and sell it? Then you can give 1/3 of the money to the charity and keep the rest yourself. The 1/3 is basically the max value that you'd get as a write off and only if you itemize.

 

[Brybo86]

i agree with the others, unless you are itemizing...
makes more sense to sell it and either give all or part of the money to a charity of your liking

 

[Spartanfool]

I am looking at donating my 33 yr old boat. To Boat Angel. WIll get a tax deduction. The NADA price is about $4000 to $4500. They put it on EBAY sell it and the buyer picks it up at your house. But the tax deduction you get is only what they sell it for. Which is often only a few hundred. Now if they do a "material improvement" then you can deduct the NADA value. Or so they say.

Any one donated a vehicle to charity?

I donated a car that was going for about $2100-2500 and the charity said they received $500 from the guys who pick them up and sell it. I think its basically a scam, but the charity was happy with the $500 they got.

 

[sloinker]

Don't they all?

Length is important but don't discount beam.

 

[Lubener]

I am looking at donating my 33 yr old boat. To Boat Angel. WIll get a tax deduction. The NADA price is about $4000 to $4500. They put it on EBAY sell it and the buyer picks it up at your house. But the tax deduction you get is only what they sell it for. Which is often only a few hundred. Now if they do a "material improvement" then you can deduct the NADA value. Or so they say.

Any one donated a vehicle to charity?

Yes but it was a while ago when you could still use book value for it on your tax return.

 

[DriveHard]

what kind of boat is it? pics?

 

[PandaBear]

I heard this from a friend so I am not sure if this is correct (please correct me if I'm wrong): you donate things that have appreciated in value since you get it a long time ago, you can deduct the actual value it is worth when you donate it, so you don't need to be taxed at the gain since you got it. This is why a lot of old estates are donated to charity instead of sold.

For a depreciating asset like a car, I think this doesn't make sense ever since they don't let you automatically take KBB value as your deduction.

 

[97prizm]

I donated my Geo four years ago to the local school automotive program. They gave me $300ish or so. They unfortunately didn't keep it long, and sent it to pull n pay for scrap. I'm still bitter about that. Most charities say they fix up stuff but I'm really skeptical about that. Supposedly Kars 4 Kids does actually donate the said items to families in need, not sure if a boat qualifies.

 

[Leo99]

I donated my Geo four years ago to the local school automotive program. They gave me $300ish or so. They unfortunately didn't keep it long, and sent it to pull n pay for scrap. I'm still bitter about that. Most charities say they fix up stuff but I'm really skeptical about that. Supposedly Kars 4 Kids does actually donate the said items to families in need, not sure if a boat qualifies.

I think all of them just sell the vehicles and use the money for stuff. They are not in the junk car restoration business. And who wants that liability.

There's no tax savings if you don't itemize and with the new tax laws, it's hard to overcome the standard deduction threshold. I'd just sell it or reach out to the local church or high school to see if they knew anyone that was needing a beater. There's always some yahoo that will buy a boat for the right price.

 

[PandaBear]

I think all of them just sell the vehicles and use the money for stuff. They are not in the junk car restoration business. And who wants that liability.

There's no tax savings if you don't itemize and with the new tax laws, it's hard to overcome the standard deduction threshold. I'd just sell it or reach out to the local church or high school to see if they knew anyone that was needing a beater. There's always some yahoo that will buy a boat for the right price.

Even if you can itemize you still lose more money than selling it like they do (auction, sell to another dealer, etc) with deduction.

 

[Donald]

I can look up the price of be my old boat in NADA and it $4500. On eBay I would be lucky to get $1000. I added a bunch of older boats to my watchlist and looked at them when the sale closed. It was typically under $1000.

 

[SeaJay]

In theory, your deduction is supposed to be the actual market value. But nothing will ever be said or done by the authorities if the NADA valuation is used instead as a deduction.

 

[PandaBear]

In theory, your deduction is supposed to be the actual market value. But nothing will ever be said or done by the authorities if the NADA valuation is used instead as a deduction.

I think they stopped letting people do that now and you have to get it through a transaction (the charity auction it off), or they are actually given to someone in need then they can use the valuation in a reference (NAND, KBB, etc), not sure if the one receiving donation will need to be taxed for that.

 

[Wolf359]

I think they stopped letting people do that now and you have to get it through a transaction (the charity auction it off), or they are actually given to someone in need then they can use the valuation in a reference (NAND, KBB, etc), not sure if the one receiving donation will need to be taxed for that.

The way they closed that loophole was that you needed the letter from the charity saying exactly how much of a donation you made as they will tell you exactly what they got for it. Because they sell it off, they might get less than whatever you sell it for privately.