question on donating corals?

[Drake1]

i was thinking of getting out of the hobby for a while, it has become apparent that the price of my corals are no where near what i paid for them, i have a local zoo that will take my corals, just curious if anyone knows how i would go by pricing everything for a tax dediction? second question is i have always heard that for every $100 you donate you get $30 back in tax saving is this true
thanks jeff

 

[t11t5]

I would look at frag prices, then compare size and make a estimate.

 

[Dustin1300]

Donate to me and I'll give you more than 30%

I'd guess that you'll need to come up with a good average as you don't want an audit coming around and you've raised the numbers a little high. Possibly you could get a LFS/Coral Dealer around you write up an invoice on what they estimate them at in your area.

 

[expyman]

I have heard of this before and usually a dealer/store will be more then willing to write you up a fair market estimate.

 

[AgeDynasty]

I would just take to LFS and get estimate on the valvue of the coral.

 

[reefergeorge]

Something is wrong if your corals are not worth more than you paid. List them for sale on your local board.
I recently sold a coral rock for 15x what I paid for the frag, and I still have some left to grow out again.
Good luck

 

[mjoener]

Something is wrong if your corals are not worth more than you paid. List them for sale on your local board.
I recently sold a coral rock for 15x what I paid for the frag, and I still have some left to grow out again.
Good luck

I do not always find this to be true.

I bought bam bams about 1.5-2 yrs ago, I bought like 5 polyps for like $80
Now I have well over 1500-2000 polyps on several differnt rocks and can't sell em to save my life!

Once something becomes more popular and reoccurring in the hobby its value goes down... This is also known as supply and demand. lol

 

[MCary]

Just pick a number and have the zoo sign a reciept for them. IRS will not challenge it.

 

[Gold Stripe]

If you are in an 11% tax bracket and you donate/deduct $100 then you save $11 in taxes. If you are in a 35% tax bracket then you save $35. Thats how it goes.

 

[reefkeeper01]

Keep you total charitable contribution beneath $1,000 and you will be fine. Keep your income level in mind if you normally itemize it should be a non-issue; however, over $1,000 and you can attract attention to yourself especially if you do not normally contribute to charities. It is a nice gesture to donate it to the zoo. You may want to look at other options to generate more than one donation receipt, i.e. a children’s museum, etc.

 

[billsreef]

With tax advice, I'd ask an account instead of listening to unknowns on the internet

As for valuing donated livestock, any zoo or aquarium will likely be aware of the going market prices and how to write up a valuation for you.

 

[cdeboard]

km... i would love to have bam bams! lol

To OP: Yeah take to store if you want to go that route

 

[tasha6]

The IRS is doing more audits and they are really going after itemized deductions plus a few others. I would make sure tyou have a complete list of everything you are donating and be able to provide a reasonable explanation as to how you determined the value. If it happens to be over $5,000 you need to have an apprasial done. It doesn't matter if you donate to more than 1 place it is $5,000 total. HTH