Charitable Contribution

[joe645]

Nevada; I donated a pair of Starkey Hearing Aids to a qualified 501(c) organization. I cannot find any reputable information which will help me determine a fair market value to deduct on my Federal Tax Return. I paid $3,000 for them and they were in excellent working order. They were about 10 years old.

 

[FlyingRon]

The IRS will allow any reasonable computation of the value. If the recipient institution is able to come up with one that would be best.
If not, I've got some pretty bad news for you. The depreciation on hearing aids is straight line for 5 years. Ten-year-old hearing aids are worth nothing as far as tax issues are concerned.

 

[LdiJ]

The IRS will allow any reasonable computation of the value. If the recipient institution is able to come up with one that would be best.
If not, I've got some pretty bad news for you. The depreciation on hearing aids is straight line for 5 years. Ten-year-old hearing aids are worth nothing as far as tax issues are concerned.

I am going to disagree with you. Depreciation really doesn't apply when it comes to charitable deductions, nor does it apply to personal possessions, but even if it did, something in good working order would have a salvage value. What the item is worth is what it is worth to the charity, or to the person that will be able to use the item. Crutches, a wheel chair in good working order, a walker, a cleaned up and restored CPAP machine, a shower chair and many many other medical items have enormous value to the charity and to the eventual recipient even if one could technically claim that they were fully depreciated.

I would guess that 10-15% of the original cost would be a reasonable value to put on the donation. If you look at any of the multitudes of donation value guides no where in those guides will you see that any item is denied a value because it has "depreciated out". All donation guides base value on the condition/working order of the item in question.

 

[FlyingRon]

As I said, if the charity is willing to place a value, that usually is a good thing (especially if it's a specialized charity that knows what these devices are worth). The IRS has enjoined the charities of late (especially car donation ones) from inflating the market value over what it's practically worth. Your reputable charities will know this.

Ldij's numbers come right out of the posterior. You're joking if you think there's a 10% residual value on these things Declaring a used personal item at $1000-1500 is going to require justification (an appraisal of some sort).

The fuller explanation is in Pub 526 https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf

I didn't pull the five year deprecation out of my ass, see: http://www.centuryhearingaids.com/blog/donate-your-hearing-aids-tax-deduction-tip
or here (specific to Starkey's even): http://www.mcguireshearing.com/pages/donate.php

 

[LdiJ]

As I said, if the charity is willing to place a value, that usually is a good thing (especially if it's a specialized charity that knows what these devices are worth). The IRS has enjoined the charities of late (especially car donation ones) from inflating the market value over what it's practically worth. Your reputable charities will know this.

Ldij's numbers come right out of the posterior. You're joking if you think there's a 10% residual value on these things Declaring a used personal item at $1000-1500 is going to require justification (an appraisal of some sort).

The fuller explanation is in Pub 526 https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf

I didn't pull the five year deprecation out of my ass, see: http://www.centuryhearingaids.com/blog/donate-your-hearing-aids-tax-deduction-tip
or here (specific to Starkey's even): http://www.mcguireshearing.com/pages/donate.php

Considering that the 1000.00-1500.00 you are claiming I said it would be worth is 33-50% of the 3000.00 he said he originally paid for the hearing aids you obviously are not clearly reading the thread. I said 10-15% which would have been 300-450.

Any depreciated item that remains in good working order when the depreciation period ends would have a salvage value.