Overhaulin'

Is it better to sell your crapy car to a junk yard or donate it?

I live in NY and my car is pretty much gone. I could trade it in for about 500 bucks or I can sell it to a junk yard for about 500 bucks. Is it worth it to donate it?

Public Comments

1. It's better to donate it if you are willing to itemize your next tax return.
2. Do you need the $500 cash in hand or do you need a tax deduction? Read up on donating a car to charity. The rules have changed over the past couple of years. If the car is beat up and on it's last leg, I'm not sure a charity will accept it. Most of the time they want these cars to either use or sell at auction.
3. You need to calculate the answer to this yourself, and I'm surprised that folks bothered to answer without actually addressing the question. If you are going to itemize next year, the calculation goes like this: Value to me = (deductible value of the car) * (tax rate in my top bracket) So - if the car can be sold for $500, and your top bracket is, say, 25%, then you'd have to deduct $2000 for it to be "worth it" (your words). That way, the value would be $2000 X 25%=$500. It used to be easy to deduct more money than a car was really worth, because you could use the book value. They changed the rules so that it's harder now. You be the judge on that.
4. Sell it. The average charity doesn't really get any money. A lot of these online companies are scams Plus with the new tax laws you are lucky if you are able to take $100.00 off of your taxes. You might even leave yourself open for an audit!! Below I'm including my source.