By Lee Triplett
Donate your golf equipment and you can reduce your tax burden!
If you’re like me, you have one area of your house, apartment, or garage filled with golf equipment you no longer use. Although maybe this equipment has been replaced by newer technology or you’ve grown tired of them or they just don’t work for you, most of it would probably work for someone else just fine. So donate it!
Donating items of value to qualified charities can significantly reduce your tax burden. I suspect that most of you reading this are probably in the 25% tax bracket.That means that donating $200 worth of golf equipment could reduce your federal taxes by $50 (& also your state taxes).
Now although you might be able to sell that equipment for more money, donating your golf equipment greatly reduces the hassle factor! Simply take the equipment to your local charity thrift store. Many charities will even come to your house for a pickup!
It used to be that the biggest hassle in this process was figuring out how much to value each item. Not anymore! There is lots of help on the web. Also, many of you already have it loaded on your computer. The tax program TurboTax contains a module called It’s Deductible that does it all for you!
Of course, other good things happen when you donate your golf equipment to charity. First, donating to charity benefits your community. The proceeds from the resale of your equipment help charities fund numerous worthy causes.
Then there are the additional benefits of the smiles & good will you engender from your significant other from “clearing out the clutter” while reducing your taxes! When the money you can save on taxes is added to these intangible benefits, the frugal golfer doesn’t hesitate to donate golf equipment to charity!
For a list of the charity thrift stores near you, go to The Thrift Shopper. Make sure you get a receipt and follow the IRS guidelines on Charitable Contributions.
Lee Triplett retired from a government job on a Friday in April 2005 & on the following Monday started a part-time job at a golf course 5 minutes from home. Recently, he has also got a part time job at a golf superstore. Years of trying to stretch his golf budget, combined with his golf job experiences, and a natural affinity to exhaustively explore the internet before buying anything, led him to build his website http://www.frugalgolfer.com
