ItsDeductible - valuation of items

The items in Intuit's list still seem overvalued for 2008/2009. Need to compare with the values used in H&R Block's DeductionPro.

I suspect that if the IRS starts auditing too many people for using these values as a cost basis for donated items on their tax returns, Intuit may become liable. Surely a good class-action attorney can stand to benefit by defending the large class of taxpayers who got audited as a result of being deceived by the erroneous values specified by Intuit in their product, resulting in defrauding the Federal Government of tax dollars :)

e.g. $2 to $3 for donating a used underwear? Unless the IRS Auditors are a bunch of fools who basically show up for work at precisely 8am and leave at 5pm without doing any work, who are we trying to kid?

Anonymous Remailer ecrit:

Paris Hilton's used underwear sold for significantly more on eBay. To maximize income, it would make more sense for her to sell all her used underwear on eBay than to donate any of it to charity.

That is not entirely correct. We start work at 10 AM.

1 hour for coffee and 1 hour to read the newspapers in the mornings. 8 AM + 1 hour + 1 hour = 10 AM See? We are very good at accounting. That's why we work for the I.R.S. And we look forward to our next major daily event: lunch, starting at noon. We leave the office so that nobody will be able to get a hold of us during lunch time. Also, Union Regulations requires us to leave the Federal Building at least once a day, for an hour.

We will only audit you if we can recover at least $150 for every hour we spend auditing you. Anything less, and you can safely fly under the I.R.S. Audit radar. A typical personal 1040 audit will take at least 4 hours, so we must be able to recover $600. If you donate 20 pairs of underwear with holes in them that even a homeless bum would not want, and claim they are worth $3 each for a grand total of a $60 donation, we will not audit you because it is not worth our time. So take your little itemized deductions and fly safely under the Audit Radar.

And we are not scared of Class Action lawyers like large Corporations are. If they give us trouble, we will audit their law firms, and the Managing Partners of the firm will not like junior lawyers who cause trouble for the firm. Many a junior lawyer has lost his job and is driving a taxi or teaching English in a foreign country for annoying a Managing Partner. What else can a fired lawyer do these days is something they should start teaching in Law School.