I have a question about donating quilts or the labor put into them
 

Ok so i love making charity quilts, but i had a very bad experience when i first started quilting where i was used in return for a thank you for about two years and when i got somebody to help that charity so i can attend to other family matters the new person got a receipt for the tax right from the first time....i was in shock and hurt to the core...
I got to know quilts for kids and i requested a kit to make and quilt and i matched with a quilt of my own (that was last year but can't remember when) and i didnt get any tax receipt.
Today i learned about the quilts beyond border?? and their website clearly states that they are tax deductible....so i am confused and need as much info on this as i can.

I love helping but after my first experience I will never be used again. I would rather knock on a poor person's door and give them a quilt than mailing randomly and not knowing what is going to happen to the quilt and i have heard numerous stories about people bringing quilts to long armers as they are going to charity and end up in their homes. I am saying that is to generalized but i really want to avoid that.

Pls help me stop my confusion ):

Thanks

Try joining a local quilt guild. We make quilts that are donated right in our area. This way we can be certain about how they are used. I am not aware that anyone gets a tax deduction for our donations.

I've not heard about donations other than monetary gifts being tax deductible. Doesn't mean they may not be, just that I've never heard anything about it or considered that it might be possible.
Of course I also have this hang up about tax deductions and giving that I won't go into further on this forum.

I make quilts for Project Linus and the lady keeps track all year of what we donate. At the end of the year she gives us a sheet that we can use for a tax deduction with all of our donations listed. It is up to us to assign a value to our work and this is fine with me. You might want to see if there is a Project Linus chapter in your area. Those quilts are donated to the hospital for sick kids locally.

I'm confused...maybe I'm misunderstanding the question, but if you donate to Goodwill/Salvation Army etc., that donation is tax deductible, if you're itemizing. If you're donating quilts to a recognized charity, you should be able to take a deduction. You can't deduct the cost of labor, but your deduction should be based on "fair market value" - what someone would be willing to pay for it. I was at Salvation Army thrift store today and they were selling quilts for $24.99.

They may not have thought about giving you a tax donation form . It is up to you to determine the value though. Not the charity. Track your costs and make up a sheet or find one on the internet. Itemize your supplies and list the charity you donated it to. Or ask them if they use a form. Live and learn. No need to be all hurt. Remember, volunteers may always be aware of these things.

Sandy

for quilts for kids, or any of (those type) of charitable foundations you may make quilts for your own paper work is a must! you can only claim the amount you put into the donation---so, keeping all materials receipts is necessary- you are not allowed to (claim) any of your time- or the market value of the quilt- only the real cost of making it-and if you are audited you need all of your receipts to back up your claims....you can include the cost of shipping the quilt (provided you have postal receipts to prove the expense)...so, good records is necessary

Are you perhaps getting upset about something that may not apply to you? Are you in that high a tax bracket that you could could use these deductions? If you are, you now know to ask.

I searched google and got hits for several charities that say they are tax deductible. I'm sure they are, as all clothing, houseware, etc are when you donate to Goodwill. I did it all the time. What you need is to take pictures of the items (proof) and get a receipt. We use Turbo Tax so I'm not sure how you'd do it otherwise, but they have a section for donations and even an itemized list of the value of things. Say, a pair of jeans are $30, top is $20, etc. You can look into it. If it's a legitimate charity then they must give you a receipt if you want it.

For now you can take your donations to Goodwill or whatever charity and ask them for a receipt. Or make one up listing what you donated and ask them to sign it. It has to be signed by whoever is receiving it. Then you can add up whatever you have in it and take it off your taxes. You better believe my taxes are high enough I get to do this. I understand that next year this may not be the case. The IRS is thinking of taking that deduction away from us. You can check IRS.gov for recent info on this.

Yes, I didn't add this in my post. You MUST keep receipts of the cost of the fabric,thread, etc.

Some resources to check out.
Tax deduction info for charity quilting
http://www.quiltcentric.com/2013/01/...rity-quilting/
Goodwill valuation guide (not for stuff you make, but good for used items you donate anywhere)
http://www.goodwill.org/wp-content/u...tion_Guide.pdf
and the IRS Charitable Contribution regs (Publication 526)
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p526/ar02.html

As a side note, the IRS does not make tax law. The IRS is not thinking of taking away deductions. Congress makes tax law.

You can't deduct any thing for the time you spent making a quilt. You can deduct the actual cost of the materials you put into the quilt.

Being able to take deductions has nothing to do with what tax bracket you're in. It's simply a matter of your itemized deductions adding up to more than the standard deduction.

I did taxes for 8 years. During that time they tightened up the rules for taking charitable deductions.

I work with my local Project Linus chapter, and we offer receipts to people who make donations of fabric and yarn and other materials. Usually it's someone who's quit quilting or the relatives of a deceased quilter. Roughly half take a receipt, others do not. I don't think any of our blanket volunteers ever ask for a receipt.

Me, personally, I can't even imagine keeping track of what fabric I've bought, what's been given to me, what I've picked up at yard sales, what I've used for charity and what I've used for myself. Like others said, you can't write off your labor, only the materials, and the labor to me is the biggest part. I consider it all a gift from the heart...

We deduct just the costs involved with material, etc.

I did a Quilts for Kids kit and sent it back along with a quilt of my own. They did not send a tax receipt. If I wanted to itemize a deduction like this on my taxes (we have not itemized deductions as long as I can remember; the standard deduction always seems to cover us), then I would have taken a photo of the quilt I sent and kept receipts for fabric, batting and thread that went into the quilt. You can deduct only the materials that are donated; no time or labor.

Maybe it depends how seriously you are into making donation quilts. I never thought it worth the time to document what I donate. If I were going to make and donate a lot of quilts, I think I would try to keep materials for donation quilts separate from my own quilts and develop a filing system for receipts. Quilts for Kids did email me a thank you after they received the quilts; I would make a copy of that for my filing system too.

Think about Goodwill. When I drop off items there, they give me a receipt but it does *not* document what I gave or what its value is. I am supposed to attach a list of what was in my donation. Also, there are guidelines for valuing donations. If I buy a pair of jeans for $30 and then donate them to Goodwill unworn, I do not think I can value the donation at $30; maybe half that if the tags are still on? A lot of stuff is valued at only 10% to maybe 25% of original price.

(Edit: Donation quilts are able to be valued by means of original cost of materials. Hope I didn't confuse anyone with the Goodwill example.)

Working with a guild is a good idea, or you can take it to any 501c organization and get them to give you a receipt. Normally all of the abuse shelters qualify - I know our group does a lot for them.

hi! i am collecting quilts (for sandy victims), any donations to some senior citizen ladies in my community center who lost just about everything in sandy. i, we, are not giving any tax donation receipts to anyone who donated. and there were quite a few wonderfully generous people. both with their time and money.

Did you ask for a tax receipt? It's hard to tell from your post if you asked for one, or waited for one to fall into your lap.
I've made a lot of quilts for charity, but never bothered to ask for receipts for tax purposes. I may be wrong, maybe Scissor Queen can clarify this for me, but it just seemed that the tax benefits weren't worth the effort. (Of the receipts, NOT the donations. They're totally worth it!)

It was non caring of the group not to ask if you wanted a receipt. It never crossed their minds to ask during all that time if you knew you could have one? It would make me wonder how are they managing the whole operation.

Tax deduction article reference...
 

[QUOTE=ghostrider;5905457]Some resources to check out.
Tax deduction info for charity quilting
http://www.quiltcentric.com/2013/01/...rity-quilting/
etc.

Thanks for the link to my article. For those who are interested, I interviewed a tax expert from the H&R Block Tax Institute to find out about what documentation is needed to get a tax deduction for charity quilting, and what the IRS rules are about taking the deduction. This article is the result, posted on my blog. I hope it helps someone!

Janelle

My pleasure, Janelle. You summed everything up quite clearly and specifically from a quilter's point of view. Nicely done. Welcome to the Quilting Board. :)

This is what I was told by a tax preparer for an individual tax return. You can deduct what YOU paid out and that you have a receipt for. (thread, fabric, batting and if you had a bill from a long arm quilter) Don't use anything from your stash (unless you have the receipt). You cannot deduct anything for your time. It may be different if you do quilting as a business, but if you do not have a formal business, then you can't claim anything for your time. So if you get a kit from a charity, all you could deduct would be your thread and batting. If you had the receipt.

Tax deduction
 

I ask the person receiving my charity quilts to sign a receipt for them on which I include the yardage, material types, and thread. Not a lot for just one quilt but it adds up over the year. This irritates me so much as there is no credit given for hours of labor but that's the way it is.

For me personally when I create a quilt to donate to an individual or group I do it out of love wanting to help them have a better life. Otherwise I would not do it.

Years ago when I had lots of stuff to get rid off I donated to organizations like Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc and they would give me a blank piece of paper and I was to fill out the value of what I felt it was worth. I usually would put no more than 25% retail value. I use to take those deductions of my taxes each year but than it got to be to cumbersome because tax code only allows a certain amount overall each year and the difference can be claimed the next year. It really did not help me much so I quit doing it.

Now I just donate and refuse a receipt! My attitude is that I'm donating out of love to help others and that is good enough for me.

If I see a need regarding quilts and/or blankets I just make them and give them away. I call it "paying it forward" which blesses the folks I give it to and the good Lord keeps blessing me in many ways more than I ever expected in this life time.

It seems that there are several issues here:

Understanding and following the IRS rules on charitable deductions.

Feeling confident that the charity understands and follows the IRS rules.

Feeling confident that the charity and those volunteers and staff who handle the donations are honest and responsible in their care and distribution of donations.

Anaylsis of our own motivations in making and giving quilts and our expectations of the recipients.

Sometimes issues can get blurred, and we have to stop and look closely at what is the central problem.

Dayle

You should get a receipt for your donation. You can make your own receipt and just have a representative of the charity sign it for you to make it easy. Also you can ask for a receipt since many charities may forget to offer it to you if not asked. This can help quite a bit when doing your taxes since quilts are very expensive to make. If they don't offer you need to ask. A friend of mine and I were having this discussion this weekend and she had made her own receipt and brought it along when she delivered prayer shawls to a charity and they had told her she was showing to low of an amount for her shawls. So I would say make sure you get the receipt. You can still go back to the charities that you have donated to and request a receipt since they have neglected to give it to you. Good Luck and good for you for donating to such needy charities.

If everyone was a volunteer, some may know tax rules better than others. It may not have been a slight to you personally. It may even have been a learning curve for the volunteer. Someone else may have recently taken charge and insisted everyone be given a tax receipt.

We always just take the standard deduction. Itemizing and then keeping track of receipts and then have a senior moment (which occurs more often these days) and forgetting where we put them. Also, we have accumulated so much in the years that we have lived here, that I'm thinking of throwing out a lot of old receipts/paperwork. I wonder if it's okay to throw stuff out that is 10 plus years? Just how far back does the IRS go when they do an audit?

you can claim the supplies used = fabric, batting, thread - on your taxes but you cannot claim the labor.

We do the same thing.....no tax deduction here..just or the love of it:)

Someone may have answered this before but several things could have gone wrong. Yes, you sometimes need to ask for a receipt. The person in charge may not have known either most non-profits are run by volunteers and they come with different skill sets. Should they have known, yes, is it possible they didn't, yes. Things change with tax laws all the time. So please, don't be hurt and take it personally, as they say life happens.

I donated a large quilt for a raffle for a charity auction. I was not able to charge for my time/labor, but I was able to deduct the cost of the materials. My suggestion is to always get a receipt for anything you donate (because the IRS has a deduction available for non-monetary donations).

That's one of those 'it depends' questions.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphi...after-tax-day/
http://money.msn.com/how-to-budget/h...er-weston.aspx
Also, the retention time for state tax records varies by state, so check that, too.

There is a computer program that helps assign a value to donated items. The website is www.itsdeductible.com. It assigns a FMV to clothing and other items based on what they sell for at thrift stores like Goodwill, etc. You would be surprised how much more you can deduct using this program rather than coming up with what you think is a reasonable price. The IRS accepts their figures for tax purposes. It doesn't list everything that might be donated but it is broken down by mens, womens, children, household, etc. Items not listed you can assign a price yourself.

The reason your friend got the receipt is probably because she knew to ask for it. I'm sure noone had the intent to use you badly. Many of us don't bother to get receipts because our income bracket is too low to itemize those things so it's not an issue. We file the short form and take the standard deductions.

What does the size of one's income have to do with claiming the deduction? Can't anyone claim deductions for donated $$.

I did a couple quilts for Quilts for Kids, not interested in doing that again, paying to mail them off..., no offer of a tax deduction. I guess I assumed they would have gone to the local chapter of Quilts for Kids, Silly me...:(. Yes I got an email thank you and have also the request email for more donations....too many options for other places for my charity quilts.

keep records and take pictures-for records and for yourself so you know what you did. You can take off the cost of fabric, thread, batting-not labour or hours spent. A simple way is figure how many yards of fabric used and times it by the cost of fabric. I quilt for charity, I bead for charity, and I am slowly getting rid of all my business clothes-I have only been retired for 10 years-slow, I know!!
Some of the suits were quite expensive-custom made Italian wool for example- but Goodwill sells them for almost nothing. I try to remember that the person buying, needs them and not of the original cost to me. I donate to help others-the tax write off does help some but it is not the be all or end all for gifting.

If you itemize your deductions, you can claim charitable contributions. Income level does not matter at all.

I just Googled, "Value of donated items" and got a list without signing up or having to remember passwords.

[QUOTE=MaggieLou;5908746]There is a computer program that helps assign a value to donated items. The website is www.itsdeductible.com. It assigns a FMV to clothing and other items based on what they sell for at thrift stores like Goodwill, etc.