Not a CPA / Tax account or anything really relevant to this topic and didn't stay in a holiday inn express.

Parking spot, I would look for some sort of face value, not 2nd market price.
Front row at grad. $0 unless they actually charge for seating at graduation.
The Hike and Picnic - $10 the value of the food at the picnic
Bagels $3 for a bagel.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

In the good ol' days, the donors always wanted to max out the value of his donation for tax purposes; in turn, the purchaser wanted to minimize the value so as to maximize her charitable donation.

Trump's tax changes have largely killed this game as personal charitable donations are no longer deductible for most due to the increased standard deduction. (Businesses can still "profit" from donations.)

I predict a huge decrease in personal charitable contributions in 2019 as a side effect.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

Just a warning on this from someone who thought the same thing and was pretty lackadaisical about receipts this year- it still impacts state taxes in many states. My old system of meticulously filing charity receipts worked much better than my last minute scramble this year when we realized we still needed them for state taxes :-)

Point taken. Here in Idaho, we have a relatively low tax rate, and your federal deduction treatment flows to your state filing.

I suppose if you're in a state with high income tax...and that allows you to itemize if you take the standard fed deduction...and those itemized deductions exceed your state standard deduction once you subtract out your state taxes, then you could still recoup a small percentage of your donation as a tax savings.

But even so, the savings would be a small fraction of your donation, and much less than under prior fed tax law.

Cheers.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

The value is about $2. I pay $40 per month to get the close spot at my office building. So $2 /day. If you do park and fly (Echopark and ParkingSPOT) at an airport, it cost about $2 more per day to get the closer parking spots.

I don't like it when items are marked "priceless" at these kind of things. I think it is overly cautious and a little bit lazy. The IRS isnt going to be auditing the PTA.

We switched to standard deduction years ago, donation level stayed the same.

Do you really think people only donate because they get to write off 20 or 30% of it? I mean do people really say hey lets give away $10,000 cause we will get $2000 back?

Now tracking the change will be interesting, cause I do think lots of people say Oh we donate $10k when in reality they donated a stinky pair of socks.

Anyhow, time will tell, but I can just about guarantee the charities will be saying donations are down, just to get more donations.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

For donors "of consequence"? Absolutely! Ever been to a high-dollar charity auction? "Charity" isn't the primary motivator. It's all either businesses looking for deductions and leveraging PR/advertising/exposure, foundations and trusts looking for tax advantages, or wealthy individuals (the proverbial 1%-ers) who are acutely aware of the tax consequences of their "donations".

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."