Question about writing off donations on taxes when you use coupons..

[Theresat]

Sorry if this is the wrong board..have no clue where to ask...I donated 3 shoe boxes of Pert/Garnier last Christmas..they were free..What do I use for the amount on my taxes? The amount I actually paid - sales tax - or what their value is? My accountant said just sales tax but wanted to get feedback on what others have been told by their tax preparers.

[harmons89]

I am no CPA or Accountant or Tax Attorney. I do our taxes with tax software and my understanding is you must have a receipt for donations to charitable organizations. If you received a receipt from the organization with the value of the donation use that, if not and you are using your cash register receipt then you should use the amount shown on it, if it was tax only then tax only. One thing you don't want is to be audited and pay penalty and interest on a simple donation error.

[joshmamabear]

^^ aside from that, you have to do the long form instead of standard deductions and that entails a lot of work. as to receipts with coupon entries, I was told whatever I paid OOP is the one that counts, not the full price of items.

[taylordvd]

It should be the "fair market value" of the item. When I donate items to Goodwill, I keep a spreadsheet of every item I donate and the fair market value. At goodwill, this means how much they would re-sell the item for in their store. You do not need to keep a receipt, just a description of the item and the fair market value. So, your deduct is definitely going to be greater than the sales tax or $0.

[sarabean]

I've always done Fair Market Value... If I give a shirt to Good Will, then I'll note the value, not what I paid for it. (If it was a gift that I'm donating, I wouldn't have paid for it, but I'd still take the FMV).

If I donated a $3 bottle of shampoo, I'd probably count it as $1 cuz that is what it would be resold for. I wouldn't put the entire $3 down.

Then I take my Good Will / Women's Shelter receipt, etc / and attach to it a spreadsheet with my list of what I donated and a value totaled on it.

so my spreadsheet titles look like this:

Item Quantity Value Total
XX 3 $1.50 $4.50
YY 2 $0.75 $1.50
ZZ 4 $1.00 $4.00
$10.00 total

HTHs

[uummm]

On Turbo Tax when you put in your specific donations is gives a automatic value for items. Clothing in particular it will give "high Value" meaning EXPENSIVE name brand and I can't remember what the other is called.

Any time I have made a donatoin to either Goodwill, Salvation Army...we get a slip of paper with their address and the date and someones signature. When we donate to a food bank/church we just get a letter stating we donated goods and it has their name and address on it. I have yet to receive an itemized receipts from ANY charity we have donated too.

[Theresat]

Thanks everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!

[southsider]

Check out the IRS site. Here is the link

Publications Online
Publication 526
It give a comparable example of new items with bibles. It says cost unless you can show the same items being sold at a higher price at the time of the contribution. I recall that cost is used for businesses and fair market value is usually used for individuals

I tried giving the direct link to the publication but it won't take the whole line. Just scroll down the Pub 526 - Charitable contributions.