How to Donate a Car to Habitat for Humanity

Donating a car to Habitat for Humanity is helpful to the charity as well as yourself on next year’s taxes. This charity uses donated cars to auction off to raise funds to continue with their house building, and you get a charity deduction for your taxes. The goal of Habitat for Humanity is to eliminate poverty housing worldwide, but there are many local affiliates around the nation working on a local level.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Car working
• A computer with internet access
• Telephone
• Printer

1. Locate your local Habitat for Humanity in your phone book or look on your computer in the find affiliates link at the bottom of this article. All affiliates of this great charity are a 501©3 registered non-profit organization, which is registered with the IRS in order to secure your tax donation of the car.

2. Give the habitat for Humanity affiliate a call and ask if they accept cars like yours. If they do accept cars such as the one you are trying to donate go ahead and schedule a pickup time for your car with those volunteers from the charity.

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. 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

• The link the IRS form 8283 is a PDF file, so make sure acrobat is installed on your computer.
• 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.

Resources

• IRS non-cash donation form 8283
• Habitat for Humanity local affiliates search

[ChantelAlise]

on 6/2/2008 Good information to know.