Entering Charitable Donations
This is my first year using Free Tax USA and I had a question about how to enter my charitable donations. In the past I've used TurboTax and been able to enter multiple items into one donation. Is there a way to do that with Free Tax USA or do I have to enter each item individually? Also I definitely don't have any of the purchase information anymore as the items donated were owned for awhile — Is that information important? What is the "Donor Cost or Adjusted Basis"?
Answers
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From my experience you have to have documentation that you gave your donations to a qualified charity (I'm pretty sure they have to qualify as a tax exempt organization). I'm assuming that you already made sure of that. If you donated money (cash, check etc.) they would have provided you with a document/receipt that has the value. Entering it on the site is pretty easy. Once you get to the deductions screen just select "Donations to Charities" and then choose either/both the cash donations or non-cash donations. Then you'll enter the info for the charity that you donated to and fill out what it was exactly that was donated. As long as the items are in good condition or better you're fine.
As far as determining cost it depends you just input what is considered fair value. The software will ask you how that is determined. Here is a link from Goodwill about what they use on average to value household items that were donated.
Hope this helps.
Edit: Forgot to comment on the Donor Cost or Adjusted Basis that you mentioned. If you don't still have the receipt to determine how much you originally paid then you just put in you best guess estimates of when and how much it cost you. (It's most likely more the fair market value that you've determined from your donated items). There is a very small chance that if you're audited that since you don't have the receipt to prove it that they may disallow the deduction.
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Thanks for your reply. I donated the stuff to GoodWill and unfortunately, all they ever give me is a blank receipt that I guess I'm supposed to fill out, if they give me anything at all. So I'm not sure how much that helps me. I'm just used to the way TurboTax does it, where I can add multiple things to each donation date. Can I do that with FreeTaxUSA too? Or is it each item donated it's own entry?
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That makes sense. I've gotten the same whenever I donate to goodwill. You're allowed to determine the reasonable fair market value as long as it's below $5000. I'd just put all the items donated on the same date in the same entry(Unless there are some starkly different items, for example the software asks if you donated household items, vehicles, real estate, art etc.). I'm assuming that most goodwill donations fall under Clothing or household item.
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