BY SUSAN TOMPOR
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Did you donate a clunker of a car last year? Well, do not dream of trying to take a loosey-goosey tax deduction for that charitable contribution this tax season.

New rules are hitting 2005 returns to prevent overinflated deductions for donated cars, boats and planes.

“I think there were some people who made their donations and were not even aware of the change in the law,” said Bob Scharin, editor of Warren, Gorham & Lamont/RIA’s Practical Tax Strategies, a tax journal in New York.

So beware before you file. Most taxpayers cannot simply go on to the Web, dig up a “fair market value” for a vehicle and take that as their deduction.

Read the rest of the story here @ the Detroit Free Press:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060215/BUSINESS07/602150420

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 10:15 pm and is filed under Taxes & Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.