Customer Reviews

ItsDeductible Workbook for Tax Year 2005: The Blue Book for Donated Items

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Previous editions of this workbook included a "DatAssure" guarantee which provided for a reimbursement of IRS penalties and interest if values given in the book were disallowed by the IRS. The 2005 edition does not include this feature.

Also, the number of items listed in the book has been markedly reduced. For example, the 2004 edition had 10 pages dedicated to values for women's clothing. In contrast, the 2005 edition has less than 1 page The primary purpose of the 2005 book is to shill for the online version which costs an additional $ 19.95.

Don't purchase this book.

I have used ItsDeductible for 3 years running. I thought the previous years books were much better. They had many more items listed and were better organized. In fact the 2003 book is about 30 pages longer. My impression from this years book (2005) is that they would prefer you to buy their program. They even have an advertisement in the middle of the book wanting you to upgrade to their software which includes "values for thousands of additional items...". I don't mind them offering the program, but their book should be up to date as well. I won't purchase the book again.

After looking at other reviews of the same book, I still went with it even though everyone agreed that the book was much less complete than it has been in the past. If you need to know how much unique items list for, get the software. The book is extremely general. Many items I had to write-in and ballpark a figure. I chose the book, because it was portable to where I was sorting through our piles and piles of donatable goods. I still found about 90% of the stuff I was donating in the pages of the book.

I have happily used this guide for the past few years now. I am returning this year's guide. As another reviewer noted, the level of detail has gone down dramatically. Men's, Women's, Boy's, Girl's and Infants' clothing prices now are covered in just two pages for all five categories. The "defense guarantee" in the event of an audit question by the IRS has been removed.

I am undecided on whether to put the purchase price of the book toward the software or find another evaluation method.

I was very disappointed in the workbook. I had used the CD method last year which is much more extensive. Many of the items I was interested to deduct were not in the book. I would not purchase it again. It was a waste of money

When my best friend told me how much money she was taking off her taxes because of this book, I was curious. But when I started writing down and adding up my own donations, I was amazed. Even using conservative figures, the dollar amount adds up. If an item isn't listed, there is always a similiar item to make an educated guess. I recommend this book every chance I get!

I never realized how much I was being shorted on my taxable donations. I never knew you could claim items based on whether they were in poor, good or like new condition. I was able to put an actual dollar amount on my non-cash donations on my taxes without fear of the IRS saying "where did you get these numbers?"

I absolutley, posivitely recommend this book if you donate items to Goodwill, Salvation Army or any other place.

This was recommended to me by my tax preparer and it has been very helpful. I won't need to keep bits of paper all over and everything is where I can find it so this part of next years tax preparation will be very simple.

This book is well worth the little amount of money that it costs to purchase. I'll have hundreds of dollars worth of charitable contributions based on the amounts specified in this book. I highly recommend.

Bought this for my sister, who needed information on some items she planned to donate to charity. Don't know if she even used it; but, sent it to her anyway...seems like I purchased 2 of these, in which case, I gave one to my husband as well.