Are you looking for some additional donations that you can make to the charities in your community? A tax-deductible donation is an excellent way to both help those around you and reduce your overall tax burden. Here are a few things you might have around your house that could lead to a substantial donation.

1. Your Vehicle

Donating a car can be even better than selling it. If you have a car that doesn't work or that needs a lot of work, it may be prohibitively difficult to sell. Most dealerships won't want it and many scrap yards and junk yards will pay you very little. But if you donate it to a charity, you get the benefit of both helping them and deducting the value of your car from your taxes. Many charities fix up broken vehicles to either sell or use.

2. Your Appliances

Do you have an old kitchen stove? A refrigerator? A microwave? Many old appliances are kept stored for a long time, because people simply don't know what to do with them. Rather than having them continue to clutter up your space, you can donate them and deduct their used value from your tax return. 

3. Your Clothes

Many people donate their old clothes without a second thought and never think to get a receipt. But your clothes are actually tax-deductible donations as well -- in fact, many charities will give you an area where you can estimate the value of the items. You can give a fair value to your used clothing and deduct this amount from your taxes at the end of the year. 

4. Your Building Materials

Do you have additional bricks left over from renovations? Planks of wood from building a deck? Construction materials that have been left around your home can be difficult to get rid of. You can donate things such as tile, plumbing pipes, and other construction materials to organizations that either complete home repairs or build homes from scratch. After donating them, just deduct the amount that you paid for the goods -- assuming the materials were new and not used, which is likely.

You can donate just about anything from a home and you can deduct most things, as long as you are able to prove their value. Before donating your items, you should always make sure that you're donating to a 501(3)(c) charitable organization. Just get a receipt and you should be able to deduct the fair market value of your goods later on.

To learn more, contact a company like Newgate School. 

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