Stamp Donations And Tax Breaks How Does This Work?

I fully undersatnd the tax breaks for registered charitable donations but am curious how this works when dealing with stamp donations. For my purposes I'd be interested in Canadian options positives vs negatives but please feel free to discuss from any country point of view.
I guess the main question is how do you come to an amount to be declared and on average what percentage of a break do you receive. I'm sure the issuer of the receipt can be overly generous in many cases as declaring value on a something as vague as a box lot of stamps can be sided to the good or bad.
Lets use an example of say 10,000 assorted world wide off paper accumulation. Minimum catalog would put the value at $2500 and of course it could be easily valued higher for this purpose. What would a $2500 charitable donation fetch from a tax break perspective assuming you didn't already owe and were receiving a refund but could use it to increase the refund.
Also information as to who would accept these types of donations and their criteria would be helpful to any considering this.

Early in my collecting I sent away to an outfit called Campbell Hall that advertised in Linns..$6,000 catalog in stamps for $100 ! Like a fool I sent in the money and received reams of undesirable CTO's Presidents of African nations, unattractive East Germany etc etc..i was really disappointed...but I saw another ad in Linns where a charity in Florida would accept stamps you could claim as tax deductions...they sent me a form to fill out for tax purposes and I put down $300..i figured that would cover my hundred dollar expense...they wrote back with approval and thought my donation amount was QUITE reasonable !

In the US, I was told you have to donate to a valid 501(c)(3) in order to get a full tax write-off for the value of your stamps. Else, you are limited in the dollar amount you can claim when donating to other organizations.


A 501(c)(3) is defined as:

"Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals Organizations"


I have not verified this statement, but am repeating a statement made by our stamp club treasurer. I hope I haven't been misinformed!


Brian

I can't speak for Canada, but in the US the donation is typically acknowledged by the 501(c)(3) organization and it is up to the donor to attach a value on the donation for IRS tax deduction purposes. More specifically this is taken from the American Philatelic Society's website, as they are a 501(c)(3) organization and this is how they would handle an in-kind donation:




For more information, checkout this link:

http://stamps.org/Inkind-Gifts

If you can use catalog value - Then it seems you are better off donating minimum catalog value stamps. Let's say you are in the 28% tax bracket. Donating $100 Cat Value of stamps nets you $28 in tax savings. Selling those same stamps might net you $10 (before paypal fees)

This is a strange place to be asking for tax advice.

In the U.S., at least, this sort of thing requires a bit of professional advice. There are lots of traps for the unwary. I hesitate to mention a few traps, for fear of leaving the perception that those are the only traps...

If you are a dealer, watch out, as the results may not be what you intended if you are deemed to be donating inventory.

If you are giving to an organization that will be selling the item, the organization will have to report the disposition to IRS, which may affect your deduction.

There are many more. Be careful out there.

Strange place indeed to ask for tax advice and I highly recomend anyone to double/ triple check before doing any such thing as revenue departments can make life hell! That said since it is 100% stamp related its the perfect place to ask. So in reality provided you find the correct entity to accept your donation and issue receipt you could potentially make out far better donating then selling common material. Again not advocating or suggesting but sounds as good as RRSP deductions .
As mentioned above being in a 28% bracket and with my hypothetical 10,000 common stamps at $2500 catalog value there would be $700 tax break. Maybe this whole thing is not a good idea to broadcast openly but it certainly makes sense from the outside looking in but I fear there may be many a landmine or at least piles of doggy doo along the way.

Not so fast Nitro. My quick skim of this publication suggests that you've got to account for any capital gain and that may subject you to a tax burden. At the bottom of page 18/top of page 19 it does imply that dealer's catalogs may be used in establishing fair market value.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/p...p113-12e.pdf

Ahhh so if you claim the said $2500 based on a kiloware purchase costing $100 you have a capitol gain of $2400 which will kill your right off and thus at some point cost you more in the long run. I knew there was a catch as there always is. Now if you have capitol loses that were carried over from any past experiences you may have a shot but by the time you pay the accountant to figure it all out you better have donated an inverted Jenny to save a buck.