Yipee

[Janitor Bob]

Oh good...you brought me all of your goodwill donation receipts that proves you donated a "truckload of clothes, 31 books, and a box of VHS tapes". Splendid!

I now dislike you more than I did before.

[JohnH]

Sounds like at least a $2,000 deduction, maybe more if those VHS tapes are collectors items (which they almost certainly are). Truckloads of clothes don't come cheap, you know. And I'll bet most of them were hardly worn.

[Terry D EA]

JB I feel your pain. Our local goodwill gives out blank receipts with just a date on them. It gets interesting when I tell the client he/she has to itemize the items out and determine the FMV and estimate what their inital cost is so I can fill out the 8223 form (Is that the right form number?). That usually gets them. Remember it is their job to assign a value to the donated items. Of course we are to scrutinize this when something like one guy I had wanted to deduct $600.00 for each of the ten Armani suits he claimed he donated. I said sorry bud but thrift store price at about $15.00 a piece is FMV. Don't you know he was estatic with me. Matter of fact and now that I think about it, haven't seen him since.

[joanmcq]

No Goodwill or other charitable thrift store can value the donations. I've got my clients pretty well trained now, and they will give me itemized lists that show how they came up with the donation amounts.