Technology Makes Tracking Charitable Donations Less Taxing

What are some tech trends that taxpayers can use to be prepared for the upcoming tax season already?

Some technologies are making it more efficient and effective to get optimal tax deductions for charitable donations these days. CharityDeductions.com uses eBay data to estimate the value of items donated to charity. It lets taxpayers adjust for the condition of the items donated, keeps a tally of all donations, and prints out a detailed list.

What sets CharityDeductions.com apart is the license and use of eBay Market Data to determine fair market values of charitable donations. eBay comparisons have proven to be a much better guide of what people were paying for used items and the information is all electronically stored. Most competing products make use of modified versions of the Salvation Army and Goodwill free value guides. These contain a very limited number of items, mostly clothing and some household goods. The CharityDeductions.com database has a value for virtually anything sold on eBay, so users can more readily find a comparable item on these lists.

CharityDeductions.com breaks valuations into five "condition" categories that are percentiles of the entire spread of auction results, providing users with many more choices and ranges of value. CharityDeductions.com allows users to do a "custom value" and pick something in between or another amount that might need to be adjusted. It can also track money donations and any mileage accrued while doing charity work and log and value that mileage.

CharityDeductions.com allows for free use of service up to $500 in item donations using eBay values. Many taxpayers are uncomfortable claiming a deduction above $500 because it requires a separate IRS form and they don�t have any documentation. They just donate a bag of clothes, etc. and guestimate a lower deduction to stay under the limit. Doing a detailed inventory and valuation of donated items, it is not hard to raise the deduction and reduce taxes $250-$350 for each $1,000 in donations.

CharityDeductions.com provides an itemized report that backs up the values and a summary report to give to an accountant or use to complete IRS Form 8283 - taking the fear out of increasing a legal deduction. CharityDeductions.com addresses both sides of the equation by increasing the

reward with accurate and often higher values while mitigating the audit exposure risk with a sound database methodology that has been reviewed and accepted by IRS auditors.

Using CharityDeductions.com costs $24.95 per year and can result in multiple times that in tax savings in the course of just one year.