Tangible Personal Property

As with gifts of long-term capital-gain securities or real estate, you are entitled to a charitable deduction for a gift of long-term capital-gain tangible personal property such as works of art, rare books, and stamp or coin collections not created by the donor. (Note: The top capital-gain tax rate on such assets is 28%.) How much you can deduct depends on the so-called standard of “related use.”

Here is how the standard is applied: If the use of the contributed property is related to the exempt purposes of a charity (e.g., a painting to a museum or rare books to a library), you are entitled to a charitable income-tax deduction for the fair-market value of the property.

If the use of the contributed property is unrelated to the exempt purposes of the charity (e.g., stamp collection to Keck Medicine of USC and/or the Keck School of Medicine to sell and use the proceeds), you are entitled to a charitable deduction for your basis in the property.

A donor who contributes a work of art that the donor created is limited to the actual cost of producing the work for the charitable deduction.

Tangible Property	Related Use	Unrelated Use
Fair-Market Value Cost Basis Charitable Deduction Actual Tax Savings (24%)	$20,000 $ 5,000 $20,000 $ 4,800	$20,000 $ 5,000 $ 5,000 $ 1,200

More Information