Itemizing donations of bags of stuff

[Anonymous]

I jot down something like 25 books -- $25, 10 women's shirts --$15, without listing every individual item when I have several of them.

[Anonymous]

I use "It's deductible" and photograph each item. Last year I had 300+ pictures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I create a detailed list when I bag them and take a few pictures of the load to document. At tax time I enter them all on turbo taxes it's deductible. Takes a while, but it pays off in the end as I seem to end up with many bags of this each year.

This is what we did - back when we could deduct donations.

[Anonymous]

How do you determine the value of, for example, a used sweater that you donate?

[Anonymous]

I also use It's Deductible. It's free and will import to Turbo tax. You just enter the item and it knows the IRS-approved value. Depending on your tax bracket I think it's more lucrative than yard sales and also helps people.

[Anonymous]

I just write "3 bags clothing" and then a dollar amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you determine the value of, for example, a used sweater that you donate?

You look at sweater in it's deductible, it asks the quality, and it gives you a dollar amount - my guess would be $3-10 without looking it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just write "3 bags clothing" and then a dollar amount.

This is sufficient. No need to take a bunch of photographs, etc. Just have the reciept you get, and put in a reasonable number, and you're fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not worth my time to document it all, so I don't deduct those kind of donations.

I donated $1,700 worth of stuff this year. That represented a tax savings of more than $500 to me. It was worth my time.

You know you can only deduct what goodwill will sell it for, not what you paid for it, right? How do you donate $1700 a year?

[Anonymous]

Goodwill has an online price guideline for donated items.