Donations of non-cash property to charity can provide a valuable charitable deduction—generally, you can deduct the fair market value of the property on the date of the contribution.1

Because of multiple past abuses where taxpayers substantially overvalued their property contributions, strict substantiation rules apply, and failure to follow them can cause the IRS to deny your deductions.

If you claim a charitable deduction of more than $5,000 for any single item of property or for multiple similar items of personal or real property, you face the strictest requirements.

You need to do three relatively straightforward things to deduct non-cash contributions over $5,000.

1. Obtain charity acknowledgment. You must obtain a contemporaneous written acknowledgement from the charity (on paper or in electronic form) containing2

the name of the charity,

the date and location of the contribution,

a reasonably detailed description of the property contributed, and

a statement that no goods or services were provided in exchange for the contribution (if that was the case).

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