0

votes

Vote

home-hobbies in Home & Hobbies Channel,
Written by: Bob and Joy Schwabach on Feb 20 2012, 3:33pm

Taxing Times

We often drop off old clothes and stuff at the Salvation Army and don’t wait for a tax receipt. Apparently, that’s common. So now there’s a new website called CharityDeductions that figures out the tax receipts for you.

Unlike other sites that use data from Salvation Army and Goodwill, this site uses data from eBay to figure out what your stuff is worth and then shoots out an itemized report. (If you threw in a Rembrandt etching without noticing it, they can’t account for that.)

The large eBay database makes it possible to get a deduction for that giant stuffed penguin you finally got rid of, and the other odd ducks in your closet. We gave a guitar and a cellphone to charity recently and our two items were valued at $206, which gave us $52 in tax savings in the 25 percent tax bracket. The deductions report looks very official and includes the name of the right IRS form. It can be sent to an accountant or used with your own tax software.

The website is free to use until you’ve listed more than $500 in donations. If you go that far, it’s $25 a for a year’s membership. A $500 donation can easily generate more than $100 in tax savings, so the price seems reasonable. Maybe it’s even deductible; after all, it’s a tax preparation expense. There’s an iPhone app called “DonationApp” and an Android version is in progress.

 

Citizens Comments

Post your comment

default Avatar

You might be interested in these related contributions

SoftCity Promotion

About the Author

Bob and Joy Schwabach

Evanston, Illinois, US

671 contributions

We write the "On Computers" syndicated newspaper column. 

On Computers is one of the largest circulation computer columns in the world and appears each week in 6 publications.

Current Syndication List:

Birmingham, AL “News”
Little Rock, AR “Democrat Gazette”
Worcester, MA Telegram & Gazette”
Carlisle, PA, “Evening Sentinel”
Spokane, WA, “Northwest Online”
Bangkok, Thailand, “Post

Send queries  by e-mail to:bobschwab@gmail.com or joydee@oncomp.com

 

 

 

software social commerce