[compsciphd]

Not my experience with donating a car.

IRS rules are you don't get an "appraised" (or blue book) value for the car, you get whatever the charity is able to sell the car for or $500 (whichever is more).

The only time you might get the blue book value is when the charity is able to use the donation as is for itself (i.e. donate a car to meals on wheels and their volunteer uses the car to deliver the meals).

I think a charity would have a hard time justifying an "art" donation as something they are using as is.

[URSpider94]

The IRS made specific rules for vehicles because of a massive spate of “cars for xxx” charity donation scams. Basically, you could donate a junker car, the charity (more properly, the charity’s contract car donation service, a few companies did this for a large number of sponsor charities) would get you a massively padded appraisal, and then would crush the car and give the charity $50. You got a fat tax write-off, the charity got $50, and the service got the scrap value of the car, minus $50.

[cavanasm]

They can always say they use the art as decoration for charity events if they need a "use as is" reason for why they accepted the excessive valuation.

[smelendez]

There are specific IRS rules for vehicles. I imagine that's because they depreciate over time.

[gcb0]

your problem is being poor.

if you had opted to be born rich, your friend's charity would have bought your car over the appraised value and you would have made a profit! all with tax free dollars all around.