On 11/9/2013 3:11 PM, F. George McDuffee wrote:
....

Even if obsolete from a production perspective, if
operational, these may have instructional value. Check to
see if the technical schools in your area are interested,
and you may make out much better donating the machines and
receiving the tax deduction, if you are making enough to be
paying taxes.
....

Unfortunately, for Iggy's business these would I think fall under the
special rules for "inventory" rather than as capital equipment or other
business property which effectively negates them being able to be deducted.

From the IRS Pub --

" Inventory
If you contribute inventory (property you sell in the course of your
business), the amount you can deduct is the smaller of its fair market
value on the day you contributed it or its basis. The basis of
contributed inventory is any cost incurred for the inventory in an
earlier year that you would otherwise include in your opening inventory
for the year of the contribution. You must remove the amount of your
charitable contribution deduction from your opening inventory. It is not
part of the cost of goods sold."
...

As a board member of a qualified foundation associated w/ such a tech
school/comm. college, we do get donations of such equipment that is
indeed very useful. But, we also get offers simply looking to unload
junkor, less often, useful stuff but that just doesn't fit any current
or foreseeable need that we have to refuse.

It's certainly _possible_ a local trade school might find a use but in
general for this kind of stuff we've found the manufacturers are pretty
good in filling in if asked with suitable-for-training gear.

But, while as Iggy goes on to say he's not interested in trying to run a
tax scam and his business model doesn't make it terribly likely he'll
ever get advantageous tax position vis a vis a sale, there's still the
charitable side of it that if were feeling munificent and a local outfit
had a need...

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