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by smithbits 4760 days ago
I'm a little confused by the conclusion that "It is up to donors to do their research and donate in a way that will maximize the support they provide for charities." I gave a 10 year old Honda Civic with 198,000 miles on it to KQED. A truck showed up and took it away and I got a tax deduction. The car ran okay but didn't pass the California smog test and the chances of me selling it to a third party were small. I got what I wanted, an old car taken away for very little effort. I chose KQED because I'm a big fan of public radio. It was up to KQED to maximise the amount of money they got for it.
1 comments
newbie12 4760 days ago
Point is that taxpayers are subsidizing your gain in disposing a car that isn't worth the book value, as well as the process of transporting and selling the car, and KQED might not get much money at all.
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yonran 4760 days ago
The problem isn’t that the car isn’t worth the book value. As the article stated, you can only deduct the price that the car gets at auction. The problem is that you deduct the gross auction price rather than the net amount that the charity can use. It comes back to the question of how much overhead a charity should have (see also Dan Pallotta’s talks that have been making the rounds).

What I don’t understand is what prevents a for-profit service that provides hauling, and returns to you the auction proceeds minus hauling fees and zero value insurance. Then car owners would have a real choice between pocketing ~50% of the car value and giving it to charity and getting only ~30% as a tax deduction, and they would be less likely to give the car to an unsavory profiteer.

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pyoung 4760 days ago
Assuming your car has to be towed away (for whatever reason), financially, your best bet is to probably sell it to a junk yard. They will tow it for you, and throw you a couple hundred bucks.
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meepmorp 4760 days ago
My impression was that towing is more about convenience for the donor rather than operability of the car. This way, people donating cars don't have to coordinate dropping off the vehicle at a location and then getting home.
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