Reply #14: I donated a car about a decade ago. The charity wanted to be sure it was in running condition [View All]

[struggle4progress]

and would pass state inspection before accepting it; they eventually sent a letter acknowledging the donation for income tax write-off purposes, indicating it was really a charitable donation and not given in exchange for any goods or services

But it was entirely my responsibility to estimate and document the value of the donation for my income tax purposes; I extensively searched the web for recent offered instances of that make and model in comparable condition, until I had a dozen or so, then picked out maybe the middle 5 or 6 pricewise, averaged the offers, and rounded the average to the nearest $50. The car was about 20 years old, not pristine, and I double-checked my estimated value against the bluebook value, just to make sure I wasn't giving the tax authorities an estimate they'd claim was ridiculous

I saved some documentation about how I estimated the value and the charity's letter with my tax stuff for that year