"Jim Elbrecht" wrote:

- quote -

They are not supposed to value an item. Will mean nothing
to IRS, though $3 for a dress in good condition and
fashion-wise, wearable in public, should fly.

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Suggests the Salvation Army knows the truth. I bought
ItsDeductible for potential laughs and was rewarded. Their
methodology can easily result in inflated values, unless you
call everything "Poor" condition so it puts typical retail
costs for most of us on Form 8283 for basis. But then, for
an IRS audit, you present its detail sheet listing
everything as in "Poor" condition!

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Nope. For items appearing in Thrift Stores, that's a good
method.

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No; another laugh. Guess, if need be, as to what you paid.
Then take Intuit's universal 20% if you think so, or some
other %, +/-, reasonable for the item. In fact if you do it
like that, it looks to IRS that you actually valued each
item or group of similar items. IOW, recomp everything
manually for TurboTax to do an 8283; go to Add or Remove
Programs on your computer, find ItsDeductible, and free up
hard disk space.

- quote -

If reasonable in context, like clothing or common household
goods, sure. However, for an IRS audit, they may want to
know approx. age of the items. Again, the ItsDeductible
detail sheet says nothing for date acquired.

Fred F.

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We did some major attic & cleanups this year and ended up
with a lot of clothing donations to Salvation Army & a local
thrift store. [3 lots of mostly clothing, each lot over
$500]

The Salvation Army stamped & signed the lists of stuff we
brought them. The other store gave us an itemised printout
including prices. [i.e. "5 long dresses[at] $3.00 each". . .
etc]

I used ItsDeductible & went with their figures for fair
market value for the Salvation Army stuff. For the other
store I used the store's figures which were nearly 1/2 of
what ItsDeductible spits out.

A couple questions. It seems like on the line where the IRS
asks "Method used to determine the fair market value" my
correct answer would be "ItsDeductible software" where I
relied on their research. The software automatically fills
in "Thrift store value". Am I asking for trouble there? Or
should I, in good faith, believe that ItsDeductible got its
prices from representative thrift stores?

I also note that Itsdeductible takes the fair market value,
multiplies by 5 and uses the product to answer "Donor's Cost
or adjusted basis".

Is that a reasonable practice? I do have records [MSMoney]
that would support the family purchase of that much clothing
over the past few years, but not receipts.

Lastly-- "Date acquired" seems to want a specific month &
this software [ItsDeductible or TurboTax] won't allow me to
write 1999-2004, but will allow 'Various'. Is that good
enough for the IRS?

Thanks,
Jim

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