Value of goods donated

fredct

I used FreeTaxUSA last year for the first time for my personal taxes. I was very happy with it, except for one notable exception that it did not provide for. That is it did not provide a tool which estimated the value of common donations - clothing, household, goods, etc. - like I had had with other tax services.

I did not have much luck finding online information with reasonably complete estimates of value. The online lists posted by Goodwill, etc. were missing a lot of common things, and they tended to provide a range of value from min to max which was quite wide. For instance, maybe they’d say a nightstand could be anywhere from $30-$200 (made that up, but that’s the idea).

I understand it’s guess work, but other tax services had offered features where you enter in the type of item and its condition and they put a precise value for you. In other words, they do the guess work instead of making me do it.

Luckily it did not matter for me last year, as I was nowhere near itemizing. However, as a resident of a reasonably high tax state, the new expanded SALT deduction will definitely allow me to itemize for this year.

Does anyone know whether FreeTaxUSA may plan to offer any such service? It seems like it could be a tempting addition to their deluxe package - or a standalone add-on. If not, are there any better sources of information I could use myself? Even if I had to pay a little bit to access it?

MatthewD

Hi fredct,

Thank you for using FreeTaxUSA! You bring up a good point about having a good estimator available when you itemize your charitable donations and with the new SALT increase more taxpayers may start itemizing.

I did some research and found that both Goodwill and Salvation Army have helpful tools for donations. Search for Donation Estimators or Donation Valuation Guide.

fredct

Thanks for the reply, but no those free lists aren’t very good.

My main issue with the SA one is range is far too large to be useful. For for instance, right now one of them says that an end table is worth anywhere from $10 to $52. And a double mattress from $13 to $78. So how the heck do a pick a value?

In my situation, I’m often donating kids clothes that my children have grown out of. Again, it says a pair of children’s pants is worth anywhere from $3 to $12. So if I’m donating 20 of them, is that $60 or $240 or what? 🤷‍♂️

The Goodwill one doesn’t have a range, but it’s very limited in items. It doesn’t list plates or cups. It doesn’t distinguish between kids or women’s or men’s clothes. It doesn’t list linens or sheets or blankets.

Neither of them are very useful. Meanwhile tax programs I used in the past have very comprehensive databases to assign specific values when you enter an item and condition. Nothing is perfect but they were far far better.