Valuable Car Donation Advice
Donating a car to charity has a great many advantages. You get a tax deduction of $500 or more and help a needy charity. It sounds like it should be very simple and it is simple as long as you know how to do it properly.
Before you just blindly hand over the title to your car, do some homework first. Find how much money the charity will receive from your car donation. If the charity uses a car donation center, ask how much of the actual sale price the charity will receive from the sale of your car. The term “net sale price” means the actual sale price minus auction fees, selling fees, or other fees charged by the car donation center. In some cases, these fees may exceed the selling price of your car. If that happens, the charity will have to pay the car donation center the difference and they will lose money on your car donation. You will only know if you ask them! You should also make a copy of the title to your car and make a note of name of the towing service that is going to pick up your car. You should either mail the title directly to the charity or hand it to the person who is towing your car after they give you your receipt. Never, ever just leave the title in the car! If you do, you may not get a receipt and will have no proof of your donation. Make sure you remove your license plates and any stickers on your windshield if you live in one of the several states that require you to. In those states you won’t be able to cancel your car insurance until you have returned the license plates to the Department of Motor Vehicles or transferred them to another car. You won’t be able to do either and you may receive someone else’s parking tickets if you leave the license plates on the car or stickers on the windshield. You should also keep all the correspondence between you and the charity. If you don’t keep that correspondence, you won’t have a record of your donation and it will be a problem when you try to file for your tax deduction. The donate car process will be a lot easier if you educate yourself a little first
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