IRS Charitable Donation Presentation

14 Jan 2015

Lisa Lowy

We were recently honored to speak at the Northern Ohio Planned Giving Council (NOPGC) on “Charitable Donation Appraisals and the IRS“, on January 9th. http://nopgc.org/

We were thrilled to be asked to address this wonderful group about such an important topic that can possibly make or break an organization from receiving a fabulous non cash donation. The IRS has very stringent requirements that must be followed or the report could either be challenged or worse yet denied. The donor needs to be very careful and make sure they have done all their research and hired a qualified appraiser to write their charitable donation report. Many people hold themselves out as appraisers, but beware! To actually be a qualified appraiser, one must be a member of one of the three professional appraisal organizations that the IRS recognizes (ISA, AAA or ASA) and hold a designation from that organization. It is strongly suggested to call the organization, or go to their website, and check that the appraiser is truly a member and in good standing. Also, the report must be USPAP (Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Standards) compliant. These are just a couple of the requirements of a qualified appraiser, as there are several more. Not only does the IRS require a qualified appraiser to write this report, but they also require it to be a qualified appraisal report. Besides all elements that must be included in other appraisal reports (too numerous to list here) the report must include additional elements such as contribution date, terms of agreement relevant to the item (being donated), appraiser tax ID, fair market value, comparable data and value rationale. An appraiser is essentially laying out all evidence to support their value conclusion for the IRS.

We can not stress enough how important it is to protect yourself and your interests by taking a few minutes to verify that the appraiser you are hiring is actually a qualified appraiser and not just claiming to be.