How To Report

Report your charitable contributions on Schedule A of Form 1040.

If you made noncash contributions, you may also be required to fill out parts of Form 8283. See Noncash contributions, later.

Reporting expenses for student living with you. If you claim amounts paid for a student who lives with you, as described earlier under Expenses Paid for Student Living With You, you must submit with your return:

1. A copy of your agreement with the organization sponsoring the student placed in your household,
2. A summary of the various items you paid to maintain the student, and
3. A statement that gives:
   1. The date the student became a member of your household,
   2. The dates of his or her full-time attendance at school, and
   3. The name and location of the school.

Noncash contributions. If your total deduction for all noncash contributions for the year is over $500, you must complete Section A of Form 8283, and attach it to your Form 1040. However, do not complete Section A for items you must report on Section B. See Deduction over $5,000 for one item, next, for the items you must report on Section B.

The Internal Revenue Service can disallow your deduction for noncash charitable contributions if it is more than $500 and you do not submit a required Form 8283 with your return.

Deduction over $5,000 for one item. You must complete Section B of Form 8283 for each item or group of items for which you claim a deduction of over $5,000. (However, if you contributed certain publicly traded securities, complete Section A instead.) In figuring whether your deduction is over $5,000, combine the claimed deductions for all similar items donated to any charitable organization during the year. The organization that received the property must complete and sign Part IV of Section B.

Form 8282. If an organization, within 2 years after the date of receipt of a contribution of property for which it was required to sign a Form 8283, sells, exchanges, or otherwise disposes of the property, the organization must file an information return with the Internal Revenue Service on Form 8282, Donee Information Return, and send you a copy of the form. However, if you have informed the organization that the appraised value of the donated item, or a specific item within a group of similar items, is $500 or less, the organization is not required to make a report on its sale of that item. For this purpose, all shares of nonpublicly traded stock or securities, or items that form a set, are considered to be one item.

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