My car needs to be junked - never dealt with this before

[Anonymous]

We donated to WAMU. They came and picked it up and sent us a tax receipt when it sold at auction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is donation something like tax fraud? They take a car worth $1000 (at best) and give you paperwork claiming it's writh $5000, which at a 40% tax rate is worth $2k.

Or does the IRS audit these orgs to make sure that their revenues from sales of junkers is roughly equal to the tax benefits they grant?

What, no? They are legitimate organizations. They sell the cars at auction and send you the tax receipt for the amount it sold for. In our case, it took about two months for them to sell the car, but we got the receipt for $2500-ish.

[Anonymous]

Just FYI, since OP said she donated to Kars4Kids, they aren't really forthcoming about the purpose of their charity:


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kars4kids-charity-misleads-donors-report/