No. You can not take a deduction for your time or services. A donation has to be cash or materialistic.
What is considered a non-cash gift then? I am finding conflicting information, which is very confusing. I'm also wondering why the nonprofit would give me a letter for tax purposes if the services provided are not tax deductible. And wondering how the Form 8283 is used then?
Individuals, partnerships, and corporations file Form 8283 to report information about noncash charitable contributions when the amount of their deduction for all noncash gifts is more than $500
@cburlakos wrote:
What is considered a non-cash gift then? I am finding conflicting information, which is very confusing. I'm also wondering why the nonprofit would give me a letter for tax purposes if the services provided are not tax deductible.
You can never take a deduction for the value of your time. The charity may not be following the laws, or they may be saying "thanks for your service" and relying on you to know whether or not that is an allowable deduction.
Non-cash donations are items of property. Usually tangible personal property (like office supplies, food for a food pantry , and so on). Property can also include a conservation easement, real estate, intangible property like royalty rights, and so on. You can read more in publication 526. https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-publication-526
Basically, you can take a deduction for money or property that you already paid taxes on, or paid taxes to acquire. For example, when you buy a car with your after-tax dollars, and subsequently donate it to charity, you can deduct the value from your taxes because you can reduce your taxable income by the amount of already-taxed money you are giving away. You can't deduct the value of your time because you never paid tax on it.
Oh okay, so I built the nonprofit's website and provided all marketing materials and such, so I think they thought because they would have had to pay for that service, that it was considered a donation. At least that is what I think, I appreciate the explanation.
A non cash donation is something like clothing or art or a car. It is a material item with value.
The Value of your time is specifically excluded from being deductible.
Depending on the organization, and who issues the papers, they may have no tax knowledge at all so they may just give everyone a form.
@cburlakos wrote:
Oh okay, so I built the nonprofit's website and provided all marketing materials and such, so I think they thought because they would have had to pay for that service, that it was considered a donation. At least that is what I think, I appreciate the explanation.
"provided marketing materials". If that was all digital, you can't claim a deduction for costs in creating them. But you can claim a deduction for any out of pocket expenses, such as if you paid for domain registration or hosting fees that were not reimbursed, or if you paid for printed materials that you gave them.