If you have an old car which is no longer necessary to keep your family mobile, but don’t want the hassle of trying to sell it yourself, you may still be able to rid yourself of it and receive a nice tax benefit in return. Even better, you’ll be doing the less fortunate a good turn. Just how will you accomplish all this?
Donating Your Car to Charity
You can donate your car to charity. In doing so, you’ll be able to deduct the greater of its fair market value or the amount it sells for if auctioned off to raise money for the charity. Even if the charity keeps you car and uses it in its work, the deduction is applicable because it is being used for a charitable purpose. Even if the car no longer runs, it may be sold for parts and the proceeds donated.
And whenever you see or hear of the good work your chosen charity is doing in your community, you can give yourself a pat on the back. You may even see the old wheels busily at work delivering food to the hungry or transporting senior citizens to their doctor’s appointments. Your act of benevolence will pay you back may times over!
But you must be very careful, in donating your car, that it goes to a charity recognized as legitimate by the IRS, or your deduction will be disallowed. Rather than being confronted by that particularly nasty can of worms, you can turn to one of the many car donation services to make sure that your charitable donation goes to an actual charity.
How Car Donation Services Work
If you’re not familiar with an area, the local car donation services will help by providing you with lists of their charities, and you can hone in on the one which you would most like to help. Many of these car donation services will be state, or even federally, funded, and other car donation services do what they do simply because they want to help a specific charity.
There are a few car donation services, however, who are in the business to make money, either taking a commission on the sales price of your care, or receiving a fee from the charity for referring you to them.
If you’d like to make sure that as much as possible of the proceeds from your car get to the charity as you intend, make a point of asking any of the car donation services which you contact how much of its ales price they keep for themselves. Scratch those that don’t give you a clear answer off your list of choices.
Car donation services will assist you in filling out all the necessary forms to make sure your donation goes as smoothly as it can. So if you’re really tired of having the old jalopy sitting forlorn at the end of your driveway, give it a chance to get back on the road by contacting a car donation service!