How do you write a receipt for an in-kind donation without stating a value?

Why the value is the donor's job, not yours

When someone drops off a used piano, a truckload of lumber, or a case of laptops, the natural instinct is to put a dollar figure on the thank-you letter. Resist it. The IRS treats the donee organization as a witness to what was received, not as an appraiser. Your acknowledgment should describe the property in enough detail that a reader could picture it, and it should stay silent on what it is worth. The donor is responsible for determining fair market value, and if you write a number, you have handed them a figure that looks official but carries no weight and may create problems if it is later questioned. Related: Thank You Letters That Deepen Giving

This separation protects both sides. A nonprofit that assigns values can end up in the awkward position of having certified something it had no way to verify, and a donor who leans on that figure has no independent support if their return is examined. The cleaner arrangement is simple: you describe, they value. If a donor pushes for a number, explain that the rules put valuation on their side of the table and point them to their own records, purchase receipts for the item, or a qualified appraiser for larger gifts. Related: Why Year End Receipts Matter to Donors

Keep reading: Why Year End Receipts Matter to Donors, What a Compliant Donation Receipt Needs, Thank You Letters That Deepen Giving. See how TaxThank helps you year-end donation receipts and tax letters for nonprofits.

What a noncash acknowledgment must actually say

For any single contribution of $250 or more, the donor needs a contemporaneous written acknowledgment to claim a deduction, and that applies to property just as it does to cash. The letter needs your organization's name, the date the item was received, and a description of the property. It also needs the same goods-or-services statement you would put on a cash receipt: either a sentence confirming that nothing was provided in return, or a description and good faith estimate of whatever the donor did receive. Skip that sentence and the receipt fails, even if everything else is perfect. Related: What a Compliant Donation Receipt Needs

Description quality matters more than people expect. 'Office furniture' is weak; 'six matching oak conference chairs and one eight-foot conference table, used, in good condition' is useful. For quantities, count them. For vehicles, boats, and aircraft there are separate rules and a dedicated form, so do not improvise. For gifts of publicly traded stock, list the number of shares and the company, plus the date the shares landed in your account, and again leave the dollar value to the donor.

Where Form 8283 and Form 8282 come in

When a donor's total noncash deductions for the year go above $500, they file Form 8283 with their return. Below $5,000 per item or group of similar items, that form is entirely their responsibility and you may never see it. Above that threshold, most property needs a qualified appraisal, and the donor will ask you to sign the donee acknowledgment section of the form. Your signature confirms that you received the described property on the stated date. It does not endorse the appraised value, and the form says so. Sign it, keep a copy, and note it in the donor record. Related: Keeping Clean Donor Records

Signing also creates a follow-up obligation. If your organization sells, exchanges, or otherwise disposes of that property within three years of receiving it, you generally must file Form 8282 and send a copy to the donor. Nonprofits that accept a donated vehicle for the auction or a parcel of land they intend to sell should build this into their process, because the deadline runs from the disposition date and is easy to miss once the item is gone and the staff who handled it have moved on.

Things people try to receipt that are not deductible gifts

Some of the most confident requests for an in-kind receipt involve things that do not qualify. Donated services are the big one: a lawyer's pro bono hours, a photographer's day at your event, a contractor's labor. These are valuable and worth thanking generously, but the value of time and skill is not a deductible contribution, so the letter should thank them without any tax language. The same holds for the rent-free use of property, such as a business letting you use a conference room or a landlord waiving a month of rent. A partial interest like that is not a deductible gift.

Then there are the borderline cases. A caterer who donates food is giving property, and the food is receiptable as a noncash gift, but the labor to prepare it is not. A printer who donates a run of brochures gave you paper and ink, which is property, though many businesses handle this as a marketing expense on their own books instead. When in doubt, describe exactly what physical thing changed hands, thank the donor for the rest in plain words, and let their tax preparer sort out the treatment.