How To

How to Donate a Car to Charity

Contributor
By Amy Browne
eHow Contributing Writer
(1 Ratings)

Donating a car to a charity is helpful to the charity as well as yourself on next year’s taxes. The charity uses donated cars to auction off to raise funds to continue with their charity work, and you get a charity deduction for your taxes.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions

Things You'll Need:

  • Car working or non-working
  • A computer with internet access
  • Telephone
  • Printer
  1. Step 1

    Locate a charity in your phone book on your computer that accepts donated cars, you can use a local service or a national one. Make sure it is a 501©3 registered non-profit organization, which is registered with the IRS in order to secure your tax donation of the car. In the Resources Section is a link which will take you to many places were one can find places to donate a car online.

  2. Step 2

    Give the charity a call and ask if they accept cars like yours. If they do accept cars such as they one you are trying to donate go ahead and schedule a pickup time for your car with those volunteers from the charity. If the car has a value of 500 dollars then you can easily take it off on your federal taxes with a receipt the people from the charity will give you. You must itemize your deductions rather then taking the standard deductions on your taxes.

  3. Step 3

    Clean up the car inside and out, and make it look presentable. Make sure you have a clear title of the car at the time of the pick-up; if you do not have a title on hand look for it among your personal papers.

  4. Step 4

    Download form 8283 on the IRS web site, the link to that direct page is listed below in the links section. Print off this form and keep it with your receipt and other federal tax information. This is a non-cash donation form, which you fill out or your paid tax preparer adds and file this with your federal taxes in order to claim the deduction.

Tips & Warnings
  • Make sure the charity is registered with the IRS, to secure your deduction.
  • The link the IRS form 8283 is a PDF file, so make sure Adobe Acrobat is installed on your computer.

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