A lot of non governmental agencies benefit from donations
and manage to run their daily activities using things people donate to them. If
you have decided to donate your car, the following article will give you
several tips that can simplify the entire process a lot.
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| Donate your car |
A simple internet search will reveal several websites where
you can find out more about this matter and even enroll your donation, be it a
car or whatever else. Still, the very first thing to do is decide who the
beneficiary will be. Once you have decided this, you will need to fill a
donation form; you will then be contacted (usually by phone) and you will
receive further information. After your car is picked, it will be sold and the
money will go to the beneficiary that you have chosen.
A wise piece of advice would be to ask the intermediary
organization about the commission they take; you will probably want to search
for another middleman in case that you find out they are keeping up to 90% of
the sum they get from selling your vehicle. An alternative would be to directly
talk to the charity you have in mind and demand if they accept car donations;
nevertheless, if you find out that they cannot accept such donations directly,
do your research until you find a reputable organization that can take care of
the job.
You can read more about charity track records on the Better
Business Bureau website and also using Charity Navigator’s system. During the
past ten years, Charity Navigator has helped donors find relevant details
regarding the activity of different organizations, and thus millions of donors
have made their donations safely.
If you decide to donate your car, you can qualify for a
deduction. However, in order to benefit from the tax deduction, you will need
to be sure that the charity that gets the donation is an IRS approved
organization. You can search the IRS site to see what the charities that
qualify are.
When you have found the charity that needs your donation,
deliver the car yourself. Do not expect for them to send someone over to pick
the car; if you take the time to deliver the car, the good deed will be
complete indeed! Still, before saying good bye to the car, make sure you have
re titled the car to the charity. You surely do not want to be asked to pay
tickets or diverse other fees after you have donated the car, so make sure you
take care of this aspect before you handle the car.
If the car you donate is worth more than 500 USD, the IRS
will demand to see the evidence of how much the charity has gotten for it. As
many charities sell the things that they receive, the charity that has gotten
your car will give you a receipt with the sum of money written on it. On the
other hand, if the charity keeps your car and starts using it, you will not
need this evidence, of course; in such a case you can simply report its market
value. You can easily get assistance with this by doing another simple internet
search.
You should keep a file with all related papers so that you
could show them to the IRS authorities anytime. Depending on the value of your
donation, there are different sets of documents that need to be filled in.
Written by:
George Pirvu, the author of this article, is a blog writer
for Thrifty Car Rental Bucharest, a
European car hire agency that represents Dollar Thrifty in Romania.
