Tax question re donations

[lil mermaid]

After Hurricane Katrina hit our church was housing many evacuees as well as providing food to evacuees who were staying in local hotels. I went to Sam's club and purchased food, diapers, etc. and brought them to our church food pantry. I did not get a receipt - just wasn't thinking of it at the time, really. I also donated a few boxes of clothes that they asked for.

My question is - I have a receipt that I paid for these items but no receipt that they were donated. Is any portion of this deductible? If it isn't, no big deal really, I would have done it anyway but if I can legitimately deduct any of it I will.

thanks!

 

[barkley]

check the irs website-there are special instructions this year for charity re. katrina (i know our cpa had to have us break it out from the rest of the donations for reporting purposes).

 

[salmoneous]

It gets a bit tricky. First of all, the easy thing to do is go back and get a receipt *now*. For most donations, you have until the time you actually file to get the receipt. If the total value is under $250, all the receipt needs to say is "you gave a box of supplies from Sam's club to us on or about XX/XX/2005." If the value is over $250, you need more detail.

If you aren't able to get a receipt now, you could still take the deduction. However, know that if you are audited, it will be disallowed. And if the total of your non-cash contributions to all charities is over $500, you have to file a form (8283?) and it starts to get messy. But if you are under $500, I'd go ahead and claim the deduction in a heartbeat.

Keep in mind you get not only the value of your Costo purchase, and the value of your old clothes (tag-sale value) but you also get mileage. For Katrina related charitable work, you get 29 cents/mile for anything done the last week of August and 34 cents/mile for anything done after August. (Non-Katrina mileage is only 14 cents/mile).

You did good - take your deductions!