Make A Car Donation To Your Local Church

As long as your local church organization is an IRS recognized non-profit organization, there is no problem making a car donation and getting a tax benefit at the same time. Chances are you have probably heard that your local church needs to raise fund for a free meals drive, or that your local priest, pastor, or deacon needs a car to preach and invite more people to attend church. If so, why not make a car donation?

Carrying More Weight

It is more tangible to make a donation to an institution that you are a part of or at least close to than favoring an unknown. For one thing, you will definitely know if your contribution made a difference, or whether it was put to good use. Since the charity is more special to you, an honest evaluation of the car you are offering is a necessity. The attribute of your philanthropic offering is equal only the quality of the vehicle in question. A car that’s worth nothing will not be of use to your favorite charity.

Advantages

The benefit of knowing the charity closely is that paper work will be a breeze. Car donation can sometimes be taxing if you are dealing with a difficult institution. Your tax write off is dependent on the amount of speed at which a charity can process paper works because the IRS only gives 30 days from the date of donation for the tax write off to be considered. Being a member of the organization could give you a higher fair market value, because you can arrange the contribution through the church and so you will not have to pay gift taxes. More current market price means more tax deduction and more donation amount.

Furthermore the charity will have to provide all the IRS required forms like the 1040, and 5383 that is needed to process the tax deduction. If you know the charity then they will even help you in filling out all these forms and any questions you might have may easily be answered.

Donate For The Purpose Of Doing So

Yes, tax deduction is one of the most lucrative parts of car donations, but it is nothing compared to the reward of knowing that you made a difference. It is will be embarrassing if you donate a junk car to a church charity in which you are known. This makes the donor more conscious of the effort of letting go of something important. People have difficulty letting go of cars, recognizing the charity where you car will go will ease your doubts.

It’s Who You Trust

There are a lot of fraudsters out there. There are also car donation services that get more than the charity that really needs the money. When you give your vehicle to your community church the car value is maximized. When you go through middlemen to make a car donation, much of the amount taken from the sale of the car goes into the expense of the service company and its profit. Only a pittance goes to the actual institution.

It is very difficult to find a charity whose goals are the same as yours, much less one you could trust. By donating to the local church you are assured that the church charity will employ your car donation into something that will be of satisfaction to you as a donor.