"Donate Car To Charity" Scheme May End

[Joseph Pappalardo]

> Several commercial stations (the ones I've heard are WBZ-AM and WTKK-FM)
> have run spots for a scheme whereby listeners are invited to "donate"
> their cars to "charities" for re-sale, and the "donors" get a hefty
> tax deduction.  A few months ago, the Boston Sunday Globe's consumer
> reporter Bruce Mohl published a story outlining how a private firm (I
won't
> name it but you may know who it is) profited greatly from this scheme.

I hardly think of it as a "scheme".

It's what it is...

You wanna get rid of a car (or other property?)

Want it to do some good to your favorite charity?

Firm "A" will take your car...covert it to cash somehow...and the charity
will get some cash...Firm "A" get paid for doing the "food chain" work for
the older car.

Sound like a pretty good deal for everyone involved.

> As the IRS became aware of it, they promulgated a new rule that should
> diminish or wipe out this process.  Previously you could deduct what
> you considered "book value" for the car, deduct it hope you don't get
> audited.  Now you can only deduct the proceeds of the car after it's
> sold, which may be far less.

I was under the impression that you could get a certified appraisal that
would suffice...but again, this is only for cars worth over $5,000.  (I
could be wrong, but that how I understand it.)

> Since almost by definition, people
> interested in this are already itemizing deductions, the comparatively
> return in most cases won't be worth it.

If you could get even a $100 deduction....why wouldn't it be worth it?

By the way, this has been the case for many years.

If I donated my car to my church or synagogue before this "scheme"...the
same rules would've been in place.  I get to take the value of the car as a
charitable deducation...the Church/cynagogue could/would do whatever they
wanted to to turn the car into cash.

If you donate stock to the Dana Farber Cancer institute....Dana Farber would
probably sell the stock for it's value (Which may have increased
substantially since your grandfather left it to you).  And you get the
deducation for it's value.

You've posted on this before.

You seem to imply their is some naughtiness going on.

The only naughtiness is when people inflate, lie or cheat.
(And that's the case with everything.)