Planning on donating a car, truck or van to charity? Remember that your deduction has nothing to do with kelly blue book or other fair market value estimates. The charity has to send you a letter telling you how much they sold you vehicle for – there is your deduction. If they decide to keep it for use in the charity, you can take fair market value, but the charity has to notify you they kept the vehicle.
What happened was that too many people were taking inflated values of charitable donations versus what the charities were reporting as vehicles sold. The difference was tremendous and Congress finally stepped in and required the charity to tell you what they sold the vehicle for back in 2005. So make sure the charity sends you either a letter or a form 1098-C saying how much the vehicle was sold for (the 1098-C is preferable because they reported it to the IRS).