I have always been a fan of It’s Deductible, when it was first a book, then software, then when it got acquired by Intuit and bundled with TurboTax. It’s like the "Blue Book" for giving you the fair market value for your donated household items like clothing, toys, and decorating accessories. When people drop off their donations at their favorite charities and get a receipt, they almost always grossly undervalue the amount of their donations for tax deduction purposes. Taking just a few minutes to put your list of items through It’s Deductible gives you the real dollar values for these items and allows you to take your deserved tax deduction with confidence (and even a guarantee).
The good news is that now this is FREE! My friend Ariane Benefit just pointed this out on her blog and I am grateful for the update! It used to be an annual fee to use the service, which I did find valuable because of all of the money I got back from using it on my taxes. It has a calculator that adds up your tax savings as you go, so you can really see the value.
Another wrinkle is that I met the man at conference in April who originally wrote the It’s Deductible book. He is now selling another version of that if you do want to own it in book form, called "Money For Your Used Clothing." It may be more convenient to use the book format for some people who are not as comfortable doing everything on a keyboard.
It’s not too early to start documenting your deductions for the next tax year!
But be careful if you’re using ItsDeductible without importing the data to TurboTax. Sort of buried in the ItsDeductible web site is this tidbit;
ItsDeductible provides “old” values that can be used to “estimate” your item values throughout the year. These “estimated” item values will be updated automatically when you import and use them in TurboTax at tax time.
@ Lori – Thanks for mentioning this and adding information on the Book Version!
@Jeri – Good Point! Glad Someone is reading the fine print : )
Ariane