Car Donations

They make the money by cannibalizing the parts from the cars. In pieces, a car is worth more then the whole, especially if the car can't run.

But donor beware, many alleged charities that go via this route aren't really legitimate. I did a little research on the topic 11 years ago so my info would be out of date but I donated my car (a broken down 1987 Mazda RX-7) to the Salvation Army. No money was given back or expected back as it was a donation to charity.

I have heard bad things about Cars for Kids, the one that advertises on the radio here in NYC.

I wouldn't give to kars for kids just for the fact of forcing me to listen to that horrible song.

Typically, the charity sells the car then notifies you of the selling price so you can claim the deduction. Until a few years ago, you could claim what you thought the car was worth regardless of what it actually sold for so you could give away your high mileage car, claim book for it and get a big tax deduction while the charity got a sigficant contribution. The government was the loser on the tax front but no one loses sleep over that. Now that you can only claim the actual proceeds from the sale, the advantages to you are that you don't have the hassle of selling your car and you know the charity will try to get top dollar.

Thank you.

I understand that Cars for Kids is run by an organization of Orthodox Jews. The proceeds are used for summer camps for children in their community. I have nothing against Orthodox Jews (I am Jewish myself) but the requests for donations lead the prospect into thinking that the benefit is not limited to one sect.

Thank you for that info, Engineer. I didn't know that. I always thought you donate the car, you can claim book value as a tax deduction. More damn' red tape!

If you google cars for kids it appears it's like Original Rays pizza here in NYC that a half a dozen variations of differing websites. The ones to look out for are questionable charities as they 'pocket' most of the money for administratrive costs and expenses and give a lesser amount for charitible services.