Appraisals for tax credit purposes

If you have books at your home or office which you are no longer interested in, why not donate them to an insitution, library, or charitable organization and benefit from an income tax credit. For purposes of tax credit,book appraisals are based upon fair market value. Even if your books only have a fair market value of $15.00 each (which the vast majority of books do). If you have 500 books of this value, you can take a credit of $7500.00. If you are in a 35% tax bracket, you can save approximately $2600.00. The cost of an appraisal for this kind of collection would run approximately $900.00, so your net savings would be $1,700.00.

If your books are worth more, then of course your tax credit would be higher. See below for some additional examples.
If you have further questions send an email to me to find out

Medical Books & tax credit

The fair market value of medical books is generally significantly higher than for other categories of books. If you are a physician who has been practicing for a number of years, it is likely you have a large number of older books and bound journals in your possession which you no longer need. Some of the books may be worth in excess of $100 each. Given an average value of $50.00/volume, if you have 300 volumes to donate, the total value might be appromiately $15,000.00. This translates to a tax savings of about $6,000.00. If the appraisal costs $1,900.00 your net savings would be $4,100.00. (Note that this and other examples on this page are rough estimates of value and appraisal cost, and are intended only to give you some idea of how you can save money by donating your books).

IRS requirements

For purposes of donations and tax deductions, the IRS requires that the items by appraised by someone other than the doner (or anyone related to the doner) who can document sufficient expertise in the field.

All of my appraisals have information attached which details my experience and expertise. I sign off on each page of the appraisal, and print and sign IRS form 8283. You will receive two copies of all of these documents.

Good faith estimate of the value of a collection

If you are unsure whether or not it is worth having your book collection appraised, you can mail or email me a list of books or an overview of the collection and I will provide you with a ballpark estimate of the value along with an estimate of my fee to do the appraisal. There is no charge for this.