If you're thinking about donating your car, consider what route will get the most cash to your charity or non-profit.  While most non-profits accept non-cash donations like cars, stocks, or other durable goods, not every charity is equipped to handle the liquidation process. These charities are forced to go through a for-profit companies to handle the towing and the paperwork.  Often these vehicles are sold in the wholesale market.  These can be taken apart and sold for parts, or simply sold for a profit that goes to the partner company and not the charity. Your tax-deduction is also limited to the amount that actually went to the charity and is completely minimized in this whole process.

Make sure you and your charity get the most out of your donation and not the for-profits. When your car is donated, it will either be sold as is, refurbished and sold, or refurbished and given away. The cars sold as they are are the ones that tend to go on the wholesale market, which will sell quickly, but for nearly 5% what you might earn in the retail market.  The latter two tend to get a higher tax-deduction and will sell for something closer the the fair market value of your donation.

idonate.com is a service to non-profits that seeks to sell non-cash donations for the highest possible price in order to give the charity as much of the donation as is possible.  Let idonate save your time and effort to put your car in the markets already available to us.  Visit www.idonate.com for more information.

When you go on vacation, oftentimes you can get 50-75% discounts on almost any activity by merely attending a timeshare presentation.  However, only 1 person in 100 actually buys a timeshare through these presentations.  Someone has to pay for the discounts of the other attendees and the salesman's commission, and its usually the new timeshare owner. As a result, the price is highly inflated.  If to want a timeshare, buy it through the resale market and not at these presentations.

Many resorts will put new perspectives on buying timeshares, such as one-week timeshare you can only use every two years.  This makes the maintenance fees appear much lower.  There are also rotating timeshares, which appear convenient as they allow you to pick your week each year instead of having a fixed week.  At least, they are convenient till you have to fill out the paperwork trying to get the week you want. 

Before you buy, consider that you are buying vacation at the same place every year, unless your resort can make arrangements to exchange.  If thats what you want, then maybe a timeshare is the thing for you.  Also, do some research.  Look at the accommodations and location of your timeshare. Make sure you cannot buy something similar in the same place for less. And what about in a few years when you want to sell it?  The Internet is full of people selling timeshares, and it will be neither quick nor easy to sell yours.  It will not be for a profit and may even turn out to be a huge loss to you.  You will pay a listing fee of $300 to $1,000.  Once listed, it won't sell because timeshares depreciate over time and almost never sell for more than they were purchased for. While listed, you won't make plans to use it, expecting it to sell, but you still have to pay the maintenance fees and taxes.  If it doesn't sell, you'll be contacted to re-list it.  You may end up paying $4,000 to sell it, when in the end you'll only receive $1,000 to $4,000 for it.  Hardly a worthy investment.

Spend half an hour with an accountant or tax lawyer and discuss donating your timeshare instead.  You will be rid of it within weeks and companies such as iDonate.com will take care of all the paperwork and details of selling it.  The proceeds will go to a charity of your choice and you will receive a tax-deduction for the selling price.

If you've already donated a non-cash item, perhaps now you are wondering how all this will work out in your taxes.  Well, we have some things you need to know. First, the value of your gift determines how much you need to prove to the IRS. The problem comes when you don't know now much the sale of your non-cash donation will be.  Charts may be available but are not always that helpful.  The price your donation sells for is your deductible value.  This may not be as high as you may think.

Many non-profits use a third-party such as iDonate.com to liquidate your donation.  Consider what your donation is worth on the market, usually 20-60% of the retail market. Some people refurbish and sell the vehicles themselves and donate the cash income.  This cuts out the middle man but also takes up a lot of time that could otherwise be spared.

More valuable donations need an receipt, and the non-profit will need to be officially registered.  Any charity should be able to produce a non-profit tax ID number for you to check with the IRS database.  You may not receive a specific tax-value right away, and will later receive a receipt with the deduction.

Keep careful paperwork and make sure you can prove the worth of your donation.

Non-profits began accepting non-cash donations in order to encourage donations by the middle class, rather than depending solely on cash donations by the upper class.  Overall this much more practical tactic has been a huge success.  Used cars are the most common articles donated, but really anything that will last for more than a few years has potential to be a charitable donation. 

Electronics can be good items for donation, but rarely are given a second glance until they are either completely outdated or broken beyond repair. When donated to an educational non-profit, your donated electronics can be used to teach people to rebuild and refurbish electronics.  Old collections and antiques can be liquidated and the proceeds donated.  Virtually anything that someone else can make money off of can benefit a non-profit. Artwork of any taste or style can be valuable, as long as it is in good condition.

If your donation is worth more than $500,000, or if you donate more than that value in a year, there will be necessary paperwork for your tax-deduction.  The more you plan on deducting, the more specific documentation will be necessary for the write-off.

I am currently working with a National Ministry, assisting them with a process to receive and liquidate 5000 hotel room nights donated by a resort hotel.  The recipient organization is a mission organization so I am especially excited to come up with a plan.  Our hope is that the donating hotel will allow us to list the rooms on one of the hotel booking websites like Priceline or Hotwire and then we will be able to track these rooms and the hotel will be able to forward the proceeds to the ministries fund that we host at Servant Christian Community Foundation.  The more that I serve at Servant Christian Community Foundation and idonate.com, the more I believe that God’s work can be funded in any economy as long as we remain humble and ask God for wisdom; He may lead us to ask for a non cash gift and by God’s grace, we will have a process in place that can be used over and over again.  Giving is fun!  Creative receiving is fun as well; God is not limited by anyone’s check book.  Every good and perfect gift comes from God above! 

With the recent economic slowdown, there are beginning to be adverse effects in the salvage steel industry.  For the past couple of years, I have been researching ways that idonate.com can process junk vehicles and come out with enough proceeds to truly benefit the charities that we serve.  Until recently, junk cars could bring an average of $200 a piece just from the parts and steel value.  When the economic slow down began, steel prices plummeted; going from around $300 per ton to its current level of $50 per ton.  No businesses are buying steel and there is a tremendous strain on the entire scrap steel industry. 

I was recently visiting with one of our junk car buyers, End of Life Vehicles, my contact is Paul Coon; Paul was saying there are advantages to this slowdown.   When steel went up to $300 per ton, hundreds of fly by night junk car buyer came out of the wood works.  Some even went and bought a tow truck just to take advantage to make a quick buck.  Often picking up the junk cars for free and then quickly selling the car at a tremendous profit.  With the $50 per ton price, these fly by nighters are quickly going by the wayside because they can’t even pay for their fuel with the sale of the junk cars.

Skip the hassles of trying to sell your furniture, equipment, jewelry, antiques, and old collections in a garage sale that often takes more time and work than is worth the income you may get from it. Instead, donate it and take the tax deduction. Garage sales take time and effort and maneuvering large furniture or equipment can be more trouble than its worth.  Antiques, jewelry, and collectibles may not sell for their true value.

If you donate it through idonate.com, you can specify your favorite charity or non-profit  you would like the proceeds to go to.  idonate.com has resources to liquidate your item at the best price to benefit your charity.  By itemizing and donating it, you can take the Fair Market Value as a tax deduction.

There are three main things donors do wrong when they donate non-cash items.  The first is itemizing incorrectly.  If you are donating a set of collectibles or jewelry, make sure you take careful inventory of every item.  Second, make sure you note the market value of each item.  This price should be equal to what the charity will sell the item. Finally, make sure you obtain a receipt.  Don't make these mistakes when donating a non-cash item!

So you're short on cash—and with gas the way it is, who isn't?--but you want to make a difference.  You want to sacrifice something to help someone in need.  The budget isn't quite eking it out, so what do you do?

Before you rework the budget for the umpteenth time, consider giving a non-cash donation.  Do you have any antiques growing dusty in the attic?  A timeshare you're struggling to use on a yearly basis? An old collection you could give up? Maybe even a car?

iDonate.com will take your non-cash donation, liquidate it, and make sure the proceeds go to your charity of choice.  Non-cash donations are just as useful to charities and can present less of a burden to the donors.  iDonate.com will arrange to have your donation picked up and will use its own resources to liquidate it.  As the donor, this leaves you with much less responsibility than trying to liquidate the item yourself, as well as giving your donation a better market and makes it more likely to get the true value of the item to your charity.

Next time you're low on checks, start looking around you to see what you have of value.  It could benefit a charity.