Donating commons as a tax write off?

totallyradd

I picked up a lot of cards from my friend, about 30,000 cards. I went through and took out what I wanted, built a couple sets, and now I'm sitting on about 28,000 cards I don't want. I read somewhere on here you can donate em with up to $5000 in write off on taxes. I wanna do this before December 31, but not sure the best way to go about it. Do I need to get commons appraised? How do you get a reciept? Can I just bring em to a goodwill and say they're worth "X" amount? How much should I value each card at? They're mostly 80's junk wax, but there's about 7,000 cards made up of 80-85 as well.

I tried contacting my accountant to get an idea where to start, but he's out of the office this week, so it doesn't give me much time to get in touch with him next week if I want it to count on this years taxes. You guys are more knowledgeable in this area than my accountant anyway, so hopefully I can get some good advice.

Any help in this would be great. Thanks in advance!

-Corey

digicat

I've done it a few times using Beckett's annual price guide to determine value. I'll usually cut the value in half just to stay conservative. My donations have all been to the youth groups of churches I've been associated with. They'll write up a letter thanking me for the "X" cards that I donated, and I do the math on my taxes from there.

While no one would buy a bulk of commons for Beckett price, individual cards sell every day on sites like sportlots.com for 3 times Beckett's price.

ndleo

A more important question - which charity would take 28,000 commons?

digicat

<< <i>A more important question - which charity would take 28,000 commons? >>



Around 8 or 9 years ago the local mega-church took close to 30k commons off my hands. The children's ministry director even drove to my house to pick them up.

larryallen73

<< <i>A more important question - which charity would take 28,000 commons? >>



Goodwill. Dump and run!

jeffcbay

Mega-churches are a great place to lie about the values of your donations in order to take advantage of tax breaks. Merry Christmas!

digicat

<< <i>Mega-churches are a great place to lie about the values of your donations in order to take advantage of tax breaks. Merry Christmas! >>



Just because one person won't pay X for a bulk of cards doesn't mean the cards aren't worth X. Otherwise, no one would ever buy stuff through sportlots.com or COMC.com.

And to be honest, when I donated that 30k lot of cards, I was single and made too little to need to itemize my deductions. The church didn't even give me a letter for those cards, as I didn't ask for one. I just gave them the cards.

So Happy Festivus to you.

bigdcards

I believe the Human Fund gives full Beckett on write-offs.

Maurice

<< <i>You guys are more knowledgeable in this area than my accountant anyway, so hopefully I can get some good advice. >>



Throw them away. That's the best advice you're going to get.

Mickey71

I ran out of firewood....I'll take them off your hands. I pay by the cord.

thenextlevel1

Be careful claiming too much on charitable donations, it is a red flag for an audit.

MiniDuff

I reached out to a couple of places over the last year and when nothing panned out, I brought roughly 200,000 commons to the curb over the course of a month. The garbage men had a field day. I don't think any made it to the dump. When they took the last batch, I left some complete sets (late 80s and a 93 topps) on top of the bulk cases as a thanks for dragging em away for me.

lahmejoon

<< <i>Be careful claiming too much on charitable donations, it is a red flag for an audit. >>



Plus, you would be hard-pressed to justify a deduction for anything more than current fair market value (assuming we're not talking about inventory). If you had 30,000 commons from the junk era, the deduction would be based on what you could currently get for those, which isn't very much.

NHLfightguy

A 5,000 count box of commons is worth between $10-$15. I know at local show here there is a guy that is willing to pay that. Otherwise just trash them. Trying to write them off as taxes is a huge red flag.

Charities don't really want them. Very few kids collect junk commons, reason why no one really wants them. Or just pull all local teams commons and donate those.

alexvbp

There is an estate planning lawyer in California who started a non-profit baseball card museum. It looks like he only takes cards from before 1980, but there is some good information on taking charitable deductions.
http://americanbaseballcardmuseum.org/deductionPrimer.html

elsnorto

<< <i>A more important question - which charity would take 28,000 commons? >>



It depends. If they were recent releases that you were donating to a kid centric organization, I could see them having a use for them.

Not sure about dumping 28,000 1980's commons though. Would a kid be thrilled with a 1981 Bo Diaz? Probably not most.

I have donated bulk lots of stars/semi-star/commons base cards and (some) inserts to homeless shelters and hospitals, but never as a tax deduction and rarely more than 5 years old.

As other posters have said, donating many collectibles (especially in bulk) can be a red flag for auditors, and even if you could justify your valuation to them it is probably worth more hassle than it's worth for "junk" as you yourself acknowledged.

Snorto~

jfkheat

Several years ago I donated about 450,000 cards to the Shriner's Hospital the the local Childrens' Hospital. Any donation over $5000 needs to be appraised. Goodwill will probably be your best bet. Make sure they give you a receipt with the amount of cards you donate. They will not put a value on any donation. At 5 cent per card your write off will be $1400. As long as you have a receipt and a Beckett or something similar showing the value you should not have any issues with the IRS.
James

cardbender

If you donate clothes to say Goodwill, all you can claim tax wise is thrift store value.
Meaning your clothes (or cards in this case) would be valued at a fraction of their full retail value.

Ten years ago I cleaned out 120,000 common cards and I think I claimed a $500 tax write.
Honestly the tax write didn't even change my tax bill.

I would ask some friends that have kids if you they would like some free cards and be done with them.

NickM

Seriously, bulk junk wax era commons are worth no more than a penny per card. You can legitimately put a higher value on 1986 and before (especially 1981 and before), but even those are probably in the 5 to 10 cents per card range at best if from the late 1970s or 1980s
.
I have no hesitation saying that a thrift store value on a monster box of 5000 cards is at least $25, because they will find a buyer at that price (sometimes an error or variation collector hoping for diamonds in the mix).

Nick

royalbrett

<< <i>Mega-churches are a great place to lie about the values of your donations in order to take advantage of tax breaks. Merry Christmas! >>



While I think the shot at the church is a bit much, I do agree in general. I always get a kick out of the posts here asking about how much tax write off they can get for their commons. Greed knows no season.

Merry Christmas!

jfkheat

<< <i>

<< <i> I always get a kick out of the posts here asking about how much tax write off they can get for their commons. Greed knows no season.

Merry Christmas! >>



I'm not going to turn this into a political thread but I have absolutely no problems using anything I can for a tax write off. The government gets way too much from us as it is. Every dollar I can get back makes me feel that much better. It does not cost the place that you donate them to anything.
James