Donating a Wrecked Car is Easier than You Might Think!

If you want to know how to donate a wrecked car to charity, look no further. Donating a wrecked car might seem like a complicated process, especially when you want to reap the tax deduction benefits, but it doesn’t have to be. With the correct due diligence on your part, you can surely make a difference in someone else’s life, but you can also run into a headache when it’s time for you to reap the tax deduction benefits. 

Read on for how to make the most of your charitable donation.

You Can Get More than Just a Car Donation

There are a couple of main reasons you would want to donate a wrecked car. Aside from the obvious heartwarming feeling you can get knowing your old salvage vehicle will be used for a good cause, there are a couple of other benefits for you as well. 

Using Your Wrecked Vehicle for Recycling

If you want to donate a salvaged car, there are plenty of charities that will take that car and recycle it for you and take the cash and use it to benefit the lives of others. There are a few ways a charity might turn your junk car into money to put towards helping others. Many of them will actually use a junk car removal service like JunkCarsUS or salvage yard, but not all of them. Some of them will take the scrap metal from the car and take it to a recycling plant that will pay them per ton of metal they can reuse. 

So on top of knowing your car will be used to brighten someone else’s day, you can rest easy knowing your car will be reused in a way that benefits the environment as well. 

Get a Tax Deduction

One of the main benefits of donating a wrecked car to you is that you can use that donation as a tax write-off the next time tax season rolls around. When you donate your junk car to a charity (that is registered as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit), you will receive a receipt for your donation that you can use as a tax write-off. If the car is sold for less than $500, you will be able to write off the full $500 on your next year's taxes. If it is valued at more than $500, you can write off the exact value of the salvage car. 

What Steps You Need to Take to Donate a Wrecked Car

If you want to donate a wrecked vehicle to charity, it’s actually pretty easy. But the first step is researching the best place to donate a wrecked car because not all charities are the same. Some charities use a third-party middleman salvage car service that can take up to 25% of the total value of the junk car for themselves, meaning the charity gets less money than you might think. Once you have found a reputable charity to donate your car to, it’s actually very similar to getting rid of your unwanted car for cash with JunkCarsUS. 

The first step to donating a wrecked vehicle to charity is finding the right charity for you. Again, not all charities are equal, and some of them aren’t completely transparent in where the money goes. But once you’ve found a reputable charity, all you have to do is give them a call to let them know you want to donate. 

From there, they will arrange the place and time for them to send a tow truck driver to remove your car. Then you will get a receipt stating that you’ve donated your car. One issue with this last part is that you don’t get the receipt right away. You can only get the receipt once the car has been junked, salvaged, or recycled. This means you’ll have to trust the charity to contact you with the receipt only after they have gotten rid of the cars themselves. Some charities will give you an online reference number for you to use and, after they have junked the car, they will update the value of the car, and you can print out a tax deduction receipt later. Some will send you a physical receipt in the mail after they have junked the car. Either way, this is another reason you only want to donate to a reputable charity so that you do end up with your receipt when it’s time to file your taxes. 

Instead of Donating a Wrecked Car, Consider Selling It to a Junk Car Buyer

The experience you have from donating a junk car to charity largely depends on where you choose to donate a wrecked car. If you use a reputable charity, it’s likely that all will be fine, but if you choose the wrong charity, it may not be as smooth as you expect. The easiest and fastest way to get rid of your junk car is to sell it to JunkCarsUS because we buy wrecked cars via our easy three-step process:

1. Call us at (855) 547-1550 to let us know you want to junk your car. We will give you a cash offer over the phone.
2. Accept our offer. We know you’ll be happy with it because of our highest price guarantee! 
3. Arrange for free towing. Tell us the time that works best for you and the location of the car and we’ll pick it up. We can even provide same-day services. 

We handle all the paperwork, so all you’ll have to do is sign on the dotted line. Instead of waiting for a tax deduction receipt, you’ll have cash in your hand on the spot. Whatever you do with the cash at that point - keep it or donate it - is up to you! But regardless of what you do with it, using JunkCarsUS is the fastest, easiest, and most profitable way of getting rid of your junk car! 

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