Used Car Donation

Wheels For Meals: How A Used Car Donation Can Help Feed The Hungry

A lot of people may benefit from your used car donation, not only that, it may be that one of these days it will be you in that free meals line, we all want to believe that people care about other people and value helping others, but unfortunately with the crumbling economy most Americans are probably more worried where they will be living, and if they can still afford food for themselves before thinking of others. The current financial crisis has elevated the number of impoverished people across the states and food is the most vital need for survival so if you have an old beat up truck parked around the corner why don’t you donate it?

If you go online and type used car donation in Google you will be inundated with countless charities as most of them will tell you that donating a vehicle is easy as pie. But hold up for a moment, before you dive into giving old bertha away make sure you have all the facts of making a car donation. Your request will only be put into a meals program if the institution you donated your car to, has this kind of agenda so do not hesitate to ask the person in charge what the goals of the charity are. If you and your chosen charity cannot agree on a specific set of goals, then move on and look for others.

A bequeathed vehicle will either be used by a person carrying out the meals on wheels program, or it could also be auctioned off to raise funds for the food itself. In short one of these days you may see your old car parked a couple of houses down, as a charity worker delivers the meals to someone you may know.  Although some people donate their time and services cooking those meals only a portion of the ingredients are donated so they need cash to go grocery shopping. Some charity organizations have their own used car lots, most are auctioned publicly, and others use third party for profit companies.

That is why it is imperative that you inquire how much actually goes to the charity, because then you can ask them to use the car instead of selling it. It is widely known that a used car donation gets donors tax breaks but what most people don’t know is that for you to qualify for a tax deduction the car donation has to be donated to an IRS qualified charitable institution. Commonly qualified organizations are those that are classified as section 501 institutions such as churches, and education oriented charities in which the IRS has a complete list of the years called the Cumulative Charitable Organization. The amount of tax subtraction depends on the current fair price of your car, if it is less than $500. If your car is in relatively good condition, and could amount to more than $500, you then may be able to get a deduction that is equal to the amount in which in the charity sold the vehicle. Even cars that don’t run can be accepted as long as it looks presentable, may be repaired and then sold.