SEGWAY (IT) for free! ...Well you can write it off..

[RBA]

Electric Scooter for $99 thread

hmmm

 

[GiGoLo]

nm, jonathonthered beat me to it 😛

 

[Thrillhou]

Wouldn't Segway be the ones who get the tax deduction? True, all of the proceeds are being donated so it seems like you are making the contribution, but Segway is the entity that is actually donating the money. You are buying something and with the proceeds the company you bought it from is making a donation.

If it were the way it is implied in this thread then could I not get a deduction on everything that I buy if the company does make charitable contributions? As long as I told the IRS about the contributions made by that company then according to that logic I could deduct everything.

I'll bet Segway knew that this auction would end up being very high and they knew that even if they donated it all to charity then they would get a tax break high enough to cover the $3000 scooter and get free publicity for being such a charitable group.

 

[JonathanTheRed]

No, Thrillhou (cool name, btw), not quite. Segway gets to deduct the fair market value of the scooter. You get to deduct the purchase price minus the fair market value. "Fair market value" is kind of an iffy concept, especially for a product like this that's not on the market yet, but best guess is that it'll be the eventual retail price of the model of scooter that's being auctioned.

Third repetition of disclaimer: I'm not a tax attorney blah blah blah talk to your accountant blah blah blah 😉

Moderators: Since this forum is all about saving money, I'm assuming that talk of the tax laws (and how best to use them) is on-topic. If not, please let me know and I'll shut up 🙂