What Is IRS Form 8283? Noncash Charitable Contributions

IRS Form 8283 is the document you attach to your tax return when your noncash charitable contributions for the year add up to more than $500.¹ If you gave clothing, stock, real estate, a car, cryptocurrency, or any other property to a qualified charity instead of writing a check, this is the form that substantiates the value of those gifts to the IRS. It has two sections with very different documentation demands, and the consequences of getting valuation wrong range from a lost deduction to a penalty of up to 50% of the resulting tax underpayment.

When You Have to File It

The trigger is simple. If your total deduction for all noncash donations during the tax year is more than $500, you file at least one Form 8283.² The $500 is cumulative across gifts and across charities. Five separate $120 donations to five different organizations add up to $600 and put you over the line.

Individuals, partnerships, S corporations, and closely held or personal service C corporations all use this form.¹

The IRS also groups “similar items” together when measuring thresholds. Similar items are things in the same general category: books, jewelry, clothing, paintings, land, nonpublicly traded stock, and so on.³ If you donate $2,000 in books to one university and $3,500 in books to another, those are pooled as a single $5,500 group and pushed into the more demanding Section B, even though no single gift exceeded $5,000. You file a separate Section B for each school, but the grouping across donees decides which section applies.²

One boundary worth stating up front: Form 8283 only helps if you itemize. If you take the standard deduction, noncash gifts do not reduce your tax bill and the form is irrelevant to you. Starting in 2026, the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act also imposes a 0.5% AGI floor on charitable deductions, so the first slice of your giving (0.5% of adjusted gross income) is disallowed even if you itemize.

Section A or Section B: Which Applies

Form 8283 splits by dollar value, and the documentation burden jumps sharply at the dividing line.

Section A covers items or groups of similar items with a claimed deduction of $5,000 or less.³ You fill in a description of the property, how and when you acquired it, your cost basis, the fair market value, and the method you used to arrive at that value. No outside appraisal is required. Comparable sales data and thrift store pricing are common valuation methods.

Section B covers items or groups of similar items with a claimed deduction of more than $5,000.³ This triggers the qualified appraisal requirement. You must hire a qualified appraiser to produce a formal written valuation, the appraiser must sign Part IV of the form, and the charity must sign the donee acknowledgment in Part V confirming it received the property.² If either signature is missing, the IRS can disallow the entire deduction even if the donation was real and properly valued.

Publicly traded securities are the big exception. They go on Section A regardless of value.² Donate $50,000 in shares that trade on a major exchange and you still report them in Section A and skip the appraisal, because the market price on the date of the gift establishes fair market value. Nonpublicly traded stock worth more than $5,000, though, goes on Section B and does require an appraisal.

Qualified Appraisal Rules

The appraisal requirement is where most Section B mistakes happen. The IRS is specific about who can appraise, what the report must contain, and when it must be finished.

A qualified appraiser must either hold a recognized professional designation from an appraiser organization demonstrating competency in the type of property being valued, or have completed relevant professional or college-level coursework plus at least two years of experience valuing that type of property.² The appraiser must regularly prepare appraisals for compensation and must include a declaration of qualifications and education in the report. Family members, the donor, and the donee organization cannot serve as the appraiser.

Timing is strict. The appraiser must sign and date the appraisal no earlier than 60 days before the date of the donation, and you must receive the completed appraisal before the due date (including extensions) of the return on which you first claim the deduction.² An appraisal completed after your filing deadline means no deduction, even if everything else is in order.

Rules for Specific Types of Property

Vehicles, Boats, and Airplanes

Donating a car, boat, or airplane worth more than $500 triggers a separate requirement: the charity must issue you Form 1098-C before you can finalize the deduction.⁴ If the charity sells the vehicle without materially improving it, your deduction is generally limited to the actual sale price rather than a fair market value you estimate. Without a valid Form 1098-C, the IRS caps the deduction at $500 regardless of what the vehicle was worth.⁵

Clothing and Household Items

You cannot deduct clothing or household items unless they are in good used condition or better.⁶ There is no formal IRS definition of “good used condition,” but items with significant stains, tears, or missing parts generally do not qualify. The one exception: if a single item worth more than $500 is not in good condition, you can still deduct it by attaching a qualified appraisal to your return.²

Cryptocurrency

Virtual currency donations follow the same framework as other noncash gifts. If you held the currency longer than one year, your deduction equals the fair market value at the time of the donation. If you held it one year or less, the deduction is limited to the lesser of your basis or the fair market value.⁷ Crypto is not publicly traded stock for these purposes, so donations valued over $5,000 need a qualified appraisal and the charity’s Section B signature.

Property You Held One Year or Less

For any property held one year or less before you donated it, the deduction is limited to the lesser of your cost basis or the fair market value. Buy stock for $800, watch it grow to $1,000, donate it after five months, and your deduction is $800, not $1,000, because that $200 gain would have been short-term if you had sold.⁸ This holding-period rule applies broadly to donated property, not just securities.

Intellectual Property

Donations of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and similar intellectual property are initially deductible at a reduced value rather than the full fair market value. You may then claim additional deductions in the year of the contribution and later years based on a percentage of the net income the charity earns from the property. The charity reports that income to you on Form 8899.⁸ Your total deduction unfolds over time rather than locking in at the donation date.

How to Submit the Form

Attach Form 8283 to the tax return for the year of the donation, on which you first claim the deduction.³ Individuals file it with Form 1040, partnerships with Form 1065, S corporations with Form 1120-S.²

If you file electronically, you enter the Form 8283 data in your tax software. Section B, though, needs handwritten signatures from the appraiser and the charity, and those cannot be typed into a software field. Attach the signed form as a PDF to your electronic return, or mail it separately with Form 8453.²

Some high-value donations require you to attach the full appraisal report to your return, not just reference it on the form:

Art valued at $20,000 or more: attach a complete copy of the signed appraisal.
Any single item over $500,000: attach the qualified appraisal for that item or group of similar items.
A single clothing or household item over $500 that is not in good used condition: attach the appraisal along with Section B.

These attachments are submitted as PDF files when e-filing.²

Penalties for Overvaluation

Inflating the value of a donated item draws IRS attention quickly, and the penalties are tiered by how far off the valuation is. The baseline accuracy-related penalty is 20% of the tax underpayment caused by the overstatement. Gross valuation misstatements push the penalty to 40%. The penalty only applies when the underpayment attributable to the misstatement exceeds $5,000 ($10,000 for corporations other than S corporations).⁹

The harshest tier applies to overstatements of certain qualified charitable contributions, where the penalty reaches 50% of the underpayment.⁹ The IRS also disallows the inflated portion of the deduction, so you owe the additional tax plus the penalty calculated on that additional tax. A legitimate qualified appraisal is your primary defense.

What Happens If the Charity Sells Your Donation

If a charity sells, exchanges, or otherwise disposes of Section B property within three years of receiving it, the organization must file Form 8282 with the IRS and send you a copy within 125 days of the disposition.¹⁰ The IRS uses Form 8282 to compare the sale price against the value you originally claimed. A large gap can trigger an audit.

Two exceptions apply. The charity does not have to file Form 8282 if the appraised value at the time you signed Form 8283 was $500 or less, or if the charity consumed or distributed the item for its exempt purpose without receiving payment.¹⁰ A food bank distributing donated food, for instance, would not need to file.

How Long to Keep Your Records

Keep copies of Form 8283, appraisal reports, acknowledgment letters from the charity, and records showing when and how you originally acquired the donated property for at least three years after filing the return on which you claimed the deduction.¹¹ That matches the standard IRS audit period.

If you fail to report income exceeding 25% of the gross income shown on your return, the IRS has six years to examine that return, so keep records for six years in that situation.¹¹ Appraisal reports and donation receipts take up little space, and recreating them years later is often impossible, so the longer window is the safer default.

1
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8283, Noncash Charitable Contributions
2
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8283
3
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8283 (Rev. December 2025)
4
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1098-C, Contributions of Motor Vehicles, Boats, and Airplanes
5
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1098-C
6
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 561, Determining the Value of Donated Property
7
Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Virtual Currency Transactions
8
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 526 (2025), Charitable Contributions
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6662 – Imposition of Accuracy-Related Penalty on Underpayments
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 8282, Donee Information Return
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Internal Revenue Service. How Long Should I Keep Records