How to Donate Your Vehicle to Charity

August 26th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under • by admin

A lot of us have older vehicles that are sitting around not doing much good to anyone. They’re probably sitting on the street or in the garage doing nothing more than collecting dust. It’s not really worth selling them because you wouldn’t make a ton of money off them anyway, so you just leave it in your garage. Fortunately now there are organizations which will accept vehicles as donations and you will receive a tax-deduction for the value of the vehicle that you are donating.

The non-profit organizations will take your vehicle, and then have a place such as CarMax sell the vehicle for them. They’ll take the money they receive from the vehicle and use it to do the good work that they do.

Right now there are three organizations that will take your vehicle and put the money to good use. For example, if you donate a car to the Salvation Army, 85% of the money that the car brings in will go toward the Salvation Army’s services and programs.

The National Kidney Foundation is accepting what they like to call, “Kidney Cars.” About 70% of the proceeds from donated vehicles will go to help fund scientific research, provide professional education, provide public health education, and provide patient and community services.

Some of the Goodwill organizations are beginning to accept cars as donations. This is not true in all areas of the country, so you’ll want to give them a call and ask if they accept vehicles. If you do give your vehicle to Goodwill, your vehicle will be given to a low-income family who will be able to use the car to get to and from their jobs, pick-up their children, and perform other errands.

In order to qualify for the tax donation, you will have to get a 503-c3 donation form from the organization. Remember to document the value of the car before you donate it by heading on over to Kelly Blue Book at KBB.com. Look for the private-sale value, and this will give you a good estimate of what it’s worth. You’ll want to have the value documented in case you are ever audited by the IRS. You will then be able to provide that you indeed did donate the car and document it at its actual value.

Donating your vehicle is a great way to get some cash for a car, truck, or van that you no longer have any use for. You’ll be able to help out a worthy cause and receive a nice tax-deduction for doing so.