Donating a car

My late Mom’s 92 Buick works perfectly but we would like to donate to a charity. What site do you recommend where a) the car won’t be junked and b) it will actually be used and not sold and only a portion of sale goes to the charity.

Thanks,

Patty

You could donate it to your local NPR station. Please see http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/vehicledonation/

Check your local Salvation Army. In our locality, they fix them and sell them for the costs of repair to folks who need transportation but can not afford to buy a reliable car.

Be careful about who you donate to and that it’s truly a non profit outfit.

There are numerous “money making” organizations that mask themselves as charities and advertise for your used car donation. While it’s true that they do give some of the proceeds to charity, they also pocket the majority of what they get.

There is a big outfit in the Boston area that advertises often for your used car donation. Their commercials make them sound like they are in the “sainthood” business helping many needy organizations. In reality, they are a big business that is known to only give 14% of the proceeds to charities, and then pockets the rest.

I agree with the other replies about places like NPR, Salvation Army. Goodwill is another good one. There are many good places - just look with a critical eye.

There are two types of charitable donations these days. If you donate to someone that sells it, they will send you a sales receipt that you will use for the estate (or your) taxes. If the organization sells or donates it to a poor person so that they can use it to get a job, you can deduct fair market value; you determine what fair market value is.