An important part of donating a car to charity is determining the fair market value of the vehicle for tax purposes.
Fair market value is defined as the price that an interested buyer would pay to an interested seller, assuming that neither are desperate and there are average market conditions.
You can determine the fair market value of the car you are donating to charity on your own. Here is how to determine the fair market value of a vehicle:
Look at the odometer in your car to get a mileage reading.
Visit a valuation website and plug in the information about your vehicle. You will need to know things like the mileage, if it is has an automatic or standard transmission, the model (i.e., is it the base S model or the LS), and information on the features that the car has such as CD player, anti-lock brakes, power windows and so on. Websites to use:
You can also see what other people in your area are selling a similar vehicle for by checking out auto sales websites. Some sites you can use include:
You can take the amounts that you got from each resources, add them together, and then get the average to come up with the fair market value of your vehicle.
