With the new online cart, it is now easier for you, the customer, to see what is the store and now available at the comfort of your home online, as well as in store. With live inventory, you can now see if we have the shoes you want, in your size. You can either come into the shop and purchase them there, or now have the choice to buy skate shoes at westsideskateshop.com.

We at the shop personally love skateboarding and are more than willing to assist you in making sure you get what you want. When you order is placed, it is packed and shipped as soon as possible, so you can get out there and go skateboarding. That is what we would be doing, time willing. So if you need to buy skate shoes, you now have the option online at westsideskateshop.com.

If you are interested in football, especially in college football, read on to learn some interesting insight into the roots of the game.

In the 1890s college football had already created strong emotions of love and hate. Big-time eastern football had demonstrated that it could draw large crowds, create alumni support, and build an identity that would attract new students. The fact that it had little to do with classical education bothered only the traditionalists on campus and a handful of crotchety purists elsewhere who wrote critically of football in magazines, newspaper articles, and official college reports.

Outward appearances may have changed, but the gridiron problems in that era appear remarkably similar to the present. In the 1890s big-time recruiters and alumni contacts scoured the eastern prep schools for talented juniors and seniors ready to entice them to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Occasionally, unscrupulous alumni convinced students to quit high school before they graduated in order to enroll at an institution with a big-time team. Boosters funneled tuition money to poor but athletically talented boys from the coal fields of Pennsylvania and the industrial towns of the Northeast to preparatory schools in order to prepare them for big-time college athletics. Some of these young men were in their mid-twenties when they finally entered college. Other athletes went from school to school selling their services, phantom players who had no academic ties with the institution.

Big-time alumni football entrepreneurs–the counterpart of today’s athletic directors–arranged a schedule of games which began with weak teams and worked up to big money games held in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Gridiron profits supported stadium building, sumptuous living quarters and training tables for players, as well as Pullman cars for retinues of trainers, massagers, alumni coaches, and other hangers-on who followed the team to the big games. What was left over went to support an array of lesser sports that big-time football had eclipsed.

At the major football schools critics complained that football players became the campus elite, admired by their fellow students and regarded skeptically by many faculty. In the absence of professional football, players basked in the attention of the media, and the names of the gridiron stars appeared regularly in the sports pages of big city newspapers. Even college faculty and presidents had to be properly worshipful of football and its elite because they knew that football advertised their schools and helped to retain the loyalty of alumni. As a result, they often ignored or remained blissfully unaware of scams to admit unqualified students, play athletes who never enrolled, or resort to stratagems to keep weak players eligible.

Though booster organizations did not exist outside of alumni groups, booster alumni and townspeople, student managers, and even faculty engaged in unethical acts. A Princeton alumnus named Patterson entertained football players and made every effort to entice them to his alma mater. Authorities at Swarthmore lured the huge lineman, Bob (“Tiny”) Maxwell, from the University of Chicago and arranged for the president of the college to pass his bills to a prominent alumnus. Professor Woodrow Wilson, a fanatic Princeton enthusiast, shamelessly used football when he spoke to alumni organizations and vigorously opposed football reform in the 1890s and early 1900s. In contrast, Theodore Roosevelt, a Harvard graduate, who gloried in the strenuous life and strongly supported Harvard football, turned against football brutality in 1905 and initiated the first efforts in his capacity as president to reform the spirit in which big-time football teams competed.

We know that the prototype for athletic organization began at eastern institutions in the 1880s and 1890s. Yale’s Walter Camp, “the father of American football,” became the model for the coach and athletic director. While pursuing a business career, he also acted as Yale’s de facto vice president for athletic operations, who dominated the rules committees and ceaselessly publicized the game. From the profits of big games in Boston and New York, Camp created an ample reserve fund that supported lesser sports, afforded lush treatment for athletes, and provided the money that eventually went toward building Yale Bowl, the first of the modern football stadiums. By making Yale into an athletic powerhouse, Camp built the school’s reputation, making it second only to Harvard. Because he succeeded so well, Camp became the first big-name foe of sweeping football reforms–and an especially hard-core opponent of the forward pass.

By the turn of century the deaths of players in football led state legislators to introduce laws banning the gridiron game. Players for big-time teams, critics charged, were coached to injure their opponents or “put them out of business.” The nature of the game, with its mass formations and momentum plays, made football less an athletic contest than a collegiate version of warlike combat. Eventually the violence in football led to attempts to reduce its brutality through reforms. New rules put a strong emphasis on better officiating and on less dangerous formations, but they did not necessarily improve the athletic environment.

The deaths and brutality presented an excellent opportunity to root out the worst excesses of the runaway football culture. In the 1890s and early 1900s, responding to public opinion, professors and presidents spent a great deal of time talking about the overemphasis of intercollegiate athletics–and, in some cases, passing rules at the conference and institutional level to regulate college sports. Why, then, did college presidents and faculty, who had far more authority over their students than their modern counterparts, fail to control the gridiron beast? Put differently, why did school presidents and faculty often themselves become part of the athletic problem?

. One problem might be that faculty members played major roles in introducing early football. In addition to Woodrow Wilson, who served as a part-time coach at Wesleyan, an English instructor at Oklahoma who had recently come from Harvard, Vernon Parrington, taught the fundamentals of football on the windswept practice field in Oklahoma. At Miami University of Ohio the president called upon all able-bodied members of the faculty to go out for football. In a game between North Carolina and Virginia a member of the North Carolina faculty scored the winning touchdown. Often the faculty proved helpful to the budding football programs in other ways such as giving athletes passing grades or writing articles arguing that football built intellect. Only a handful, like Wisconsin’s Frederick Jackson Turner, made a determined effort to root out the abuses in the culture of college football such as the intense media attention given to the sport and its tendency to cushion star athletes from academic requirements. That was more than a century ago. When we turn to the 1980s and 1990s what do we encounter? Outward appearances of football may have changed, but the problems appear hauntingly similar. Big-time football teams induce players to attend their institution with offers of cars and money as well as running booster operations to funnel cash to blue-chip players. Players who obtain special admission or enter the institution fraudulently do so only to play football and often leave without graduating. Schools manage to keep their players eligible by manufacturing credits or by easing them into simple courses in which they are assured of receiving passing grades. Some coaches engage in violence toward players in practice and even try to drive them out of school so that they can use their scholarship slot.

Athletic departments and institutional officials have become obsessed with the potential for profits from televised big games or bowl games. Big-time teams in the NCAA try to manipulate the organization so that they will be able to have more coaches, scholarships, and only minimal academic requirements. Players commit acts of violence and brutality, then manage to avoid the consequences. College presidents whose salaries and prominence fall far short of the head football coaches dutifully show up at football games and related alumni events, treading cautiously around the mire of big-time college athletics.

All of this has added up to major athletic scandals, most of them involving big-time football. Scandals such as the pay-for-play violations at Southern Methodist and Auburn from the late 1970s to the early 1990s man-aged to create internal disruptions and negative publicity at numbers of big-name institutions. Yet, in spite of the obvious flaws in college football, it continues to enlarge its grip on the major universities. The athletic foundations persist in enlarging their massive gridiron complexes, selling the rights to buy tickets for upscale luxury boxes and suites, and then collecting additional revenues for the sale of high-priced tickets. The major teams have created indoor facilities out of donations that might have gone to deserving but impoverished non-athletes for scholarships. While quasi-professional student-athletes play the game, ordinary students have little to do with the sport. In an atmosphere of highly specialized career coaches, publicists, trainers, and tutors, college football reflects more than ever the professionalism that reformers long ago set out to de-emphasize.

No one would deny that football constitutes one of the most entertaining and enjoyable spectator sports. In the early days some faculty believed that the student enthusiasm for football would enable the institutions to alleviate the pervasive antisocial behavior of undergraduates. Being aware of its appeal, most athletic critics and reformers attempted to change football rather than to abolish it. The few colleges that dropped football did so it because the school had no choice or, occasionally, because a college president happened to wield unusual power at a critical moment in football’s history. Far and away the largest group of thoughtful gridiron critics have attempted to reform football and to reshape it in such a way that it fit more reasonably and appropriately into the spirit and life of the university. Why have they not succeeded?

Beginning in the 1890s and continuing into the 1990s, reformers have spent tens of thousands of hours attending meetings and conferences, devising new rules to solve the latest problems that have cropped up, and generally trying to work out better systems for their own institutions; in the early 1900s moderate reformers founded the NCAA to deal with deaths and brutality and to put football securely under the thumb of the faculty and college presidents. Again in the early 1950s, in a groundswell of outrage against cheating, gambling, and subsidies for athletes, college presidents and faculty members tried to create stricter standards to reduce the greed and professionalism in football rather than to drop it altogether. In the 1980s and early 1990s an outbreak of scandal in big-time football resulted the same response of temporary uneasiness and halting reforms which had become by then a pattern in the history of college football.

The outbreak in the 1980s once again clearly emphasized the failure of reform to bring about real change. In three major periods of gridiron upheaval the colleges have been unable or unwilling to eliminate the causes of chronic cheating. While political reforms by Congress and the states have achieved some enduring success, football and big-time athletics generally have had to face the same issues again and again–much like Sisyphus repeatedly pushing the stone uphill. Why does big-time football manage to be almost constantly in a state of crisis? Is there some quality about football, or college sports generally, or a flaw in higher education which causes this turmoil? If the Greek ideal of education stands for the training of body, spirit, and mind, why have the colleges failed so abysmally at their mission?

Good question, isn’t it? But the answer is beyond the subject of this article – and, unfortunately, beyond the expertise of the college football experts.

Related Donate Car Boston Articles

f you donated a used car to a qualified charity, make sure that you learn the proper way to receive a charitable contribution for the donation.Every year thousands of Americans donate unwanted cars to charity. Donating a car to charity not only helps people in need, but also qualifies as a tax deductable gift. Unfortunately, far too many people misplace the vehicle donation receipt or forget to deduct the contribution. Here are a few tips from the IRS so that you can receive the benefits and reduce your taxes.The process of deducting your automobile donation depends on the amount of your claim. For example, depending on the amount of your claim, you may need special forms or records in order to qualify for a deduction. The IRS states that if you claim a deduction of at least $ 250 but not more than $ 500, you will need a written receipt from the charity. The receipt should have been given to you at the time of donation and includes the following information: the name of the non-profit organization; a description of the donated car and a statement confirming whether the charity or car donation program gave any goods or services in return for the donated vehicle. This statement should be kept for your records. Do not attach it to your tax return.When it comes to car donations over $ 500, donors need to provide the IRS with a copy B of Form 1098-C, section A of Form 8283. Along with the form, donors will need to attach a written statement from the charity with your name and taxpayer identification number. It also needs to include the vehicle identification number, the date of the donation, and a statement of whether the charity provided any goods or services in return for the car. If you did receive goods or services in return for the car donation in Massachusetts or California, for example, you will need to write a description and estimate of the fair market value of the goods or services, according to the IRS.Finally, deductions of more than $ 5,000 are required to include the same requirements listed above, for deductions of more than $ 500 as well as Section B of Form 8283. Donors will also need to include a written statement by a qualified appraiser.

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The mission of the Prevent Cancer Foundation is to advocate and support the prevention and early detection of cancer through research, education and community outreach to all populations, including children and the underserved.  They were founded 1985 as the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation. Since then, they have provided more than $ 120 million towards these efforts throughout the United States. They have also funded almost 400 scientists at over 150 leading medical institutions across the country.

The Prevent Cancer Foundation has been given an A rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy.

The Greater Maryland-DC Chapter of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America serves Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia and all of Maryland. They work to help those suffering with asthma and allergy to successfully manage and control their disease through education, advocacy, referrals and research. They are the only asthma and allergy patient organization that offers programs and tools for patients, caregivers, and health professionals. In addition, they offer accredited childcare provider courses, school liaison, patient assistance, and professional educational courses.

Action in Community Through Service of Prince William, ACTS, began in 1969 when 13 churches came together to serve the residents of the greater Prince William area with the purpose of preventing and alleviating human suffering.

They started by establishing a food bank, a used furniture distribution system and a homeless shelter. Their services have now expanded to include a domestic violence prevention and intervention program.

The mission of National Capital Area of the Boy Scouts of America is to develop the character of young people and to prepare them to make ethical and moral choices throughout their lifetimes. They operate more than 300 local councils throughout Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

The Arc of Greater Prince William is committed to providing opportunities for persons with developmental disabilities to achieve their greatest potential growth and independence. They offer group homes, supported living centers, recreational activities, vocational services, educational workshops, respite care, family support services and child care centers.

The car donation process is easy, fast and free for donors. You can donate your car even if it does not run, is damaged or is otherwise in bad condition. You simply need a title for your car and it needs to be where the tow truck can easily get to it. You will receive a valuable tax deduction as a reward for your car donation. You can get complete details on how to donate car by calling 1-866-4483487.

When you have an old rusty car sitting idle in your garage, you often think about the great times you have spent in the car. Maybe a date with your wife, or taking your son to the baseball game. But as the time passes by your old car becomes more of a headache than a nice memory. You are busy. You do not have the time to look for buyers and put it up on an auction. So, finally just to get rd of the car you will either give to the nearby garage, which pay you the least possible resale value or call up the junk car companies who give decent pay back for you old car.

But what if I tell you that you can get rid of your rusty car, get tax deductions and work towards a noble cause.

3 in 1. The answer here is donating your car. One can always think of donating old cars. You get tax deductions for doing this. And it also serves a good cause. Hence, this is a tax deductible donation.

Once you have made up mind to sell you car, you can pick the charitable organisation you want to donate your car. If you are not associated or do not have any idea about such institutions, search about them over the web. You can the list of such charitable organisations. Many of them have 24×7 helplines that clear your queries. After you pick the organisation, give them a call and tell them about your donation. They will pick the car in a day or two, absolutely free of cost. You will not pay even a penny for your car to be towed.

They give you a receipt. This receipt gets you the tax relief.

These donated cars are either sold by the charities or they use it for patients, kids etc. If these cars are used for the latter purpose, then you get tax deductions according to the estimate the car can be sold for. Else if it sold by the charity, then the amount it is sold for will be you tax deduction or 5000$ or which is more. If the car is sold for less than 5000$ , then you do not need any other receipt from the original one. Else if it sold for more than 5000$ , then the organisation will update you on the resale value and will give you the other receipt.

Donating cars is always a great way of getting a tax deduction. You must also know there is no other way to get tax deductions by selling an old car. So isn’t it better, you get rid for your car, get tax relief and do a noble cause.

My son, Kyle (now 7 years old) and I have watched Oprah since he was born. I used a lot of her shows to teach my son empathy, gratitude and all sorts of positive emotions. The one episode that comes to mind with my son was an update show in 2006 “Rebuilding After the Tsunami”. There was mention about people needing bicycles to get around the islands. This struck a cord for my young son. He could not believe people did not have bicycles. From that point forward his empathy grew… When he lost his first tooth, at 4 years old in 2008, the tooth fairy brought him and a race car. He told me he wanted to donate the money so that other kids could have bicycles. Moments later, he said he wanted to give his other cars to kids, also. He ended up piling up 150 of cars out of his 200 he had. We contacted his preschool mates and they donated over 50 cars and a large group of books. I took this as an opportunity to contact a friend of mine, Anand, in Kenya. Anand is involved with AVP International, a non profit org which teaches non-violence ways to life. He had a contact, Heidi, that taught in preschools doing the same training. I did some research and found shipping to Kenya with their taxes would not be a good option. So, I contacted Emily at Free The Children to find out the best way to get the cars overseas. She stated all stuff is transported in their luggage. Well, it took about 6 months to find a person to transport it via luggage. This person was John, Anand’s boss. So, in …
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10/11/2010 – NORTHBROOK, Ill.

Motorcyclists are about 37 times more likely than car occupants to die in a crash, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Allstate is helping bikers stay safe on the road by donating $ 5 to RoadGuardians for every person who calls for a quote for motorcycle insurance.

“I believe Allstate’s coverage for cyclists is the best there is. But, we know that regardless of insurance coverage, a rider has to take personal steps to ensure safety on the road,” said Chuck Paul, vice president of Allstate’s emerging businesses. “Anyone who gets a quote for their bike through Allstate is helping their fellow riders stay safe at the same time.”

Allstate’s quote donation program with the RoadGuardians will run through December 31, 2010. RoadGuardians provides safety and education resources to cyclists, including a first responder-based curriculum that teaches riders how to start proper & effective emergency care at the scene of a motorcycle accident until help arrives. To date, nearly one-third of the students who’ve received RoadGuardians first-responder training have used their skills within three years of instruction.

“The funding from Allstate will be used to help train and educate road riders to be there for their fellow cyclists when they need it most,” said Vicki Sanfelipo, president of Road Guardians. “We’re working with Allstate to help save lives by offering on-the-road training to help prevent and respond to crashes.”

Riders who are interested in getting a quote from Allstate that benefits Road Guardians can call 877-871-0500 for a motorcycle insurance quote. For every completed quote, $ 5 will go to the Road-Guardians.

DISCLAIMER: No purchase necessary. Program applies to motorcycle insurance. For each quote received, $ 5 will benefit the Road Guardians. Maximum Allstate donation is $ 100,000. Program donations limited to quotes received beginning now and ending December 31, 2010. This promotion is not available in AL, AK, ME, MA, NC, NY AND UT. The Road Guardians name and logo are used with its permission, which in no way constitutes an endorsement, expressed or implied, of any product, service, company or individual.

About AllstateThe Allstate Corporation (NYSE: ALL) is the nation’s largest publicly held personal lines insurer. Widely known through the “You’re In Good Hands With Allstate?” slogan, Allstate is reinventing protection and retirement to help more than 17 million households insure what they have today and better prepare for tomorrow. Consumers access Allstate insurance products (auto, home, life and retirement) and services through Allstate agencies, independent agencies, and Allstate exclusive financial representatives in the U.S. and Canada, as well as via http://www.allstate.com and 1-800 Allstate®.

CONTACT: Kate Hollcraft (847) 402-5600, kate.hollcraft@allstate.com

For more information visit Allstate Insurance Digital Newsroom

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The economy stinks, you’ve lost your job, and you can’t make your house payment. Maybe it’s not quite so dire: you need a new pair of glasses or some dental work, and your insurance plan won’t cover it. Or perhaps you’re a college student and you want to finish up your degree without accumulating quite so large a mountain of debt. It could be these or one of a thousand other situations, but one thing is clear: you need more money than you can put your hands on right now, and you have no idea how to get it. Has it ever occurred to you to just ask?

We’ve all heard the old adage, “ask and you shall receive.” What if it’s true? What if we could get our needs met, our wishes fulfilled, merely by asking? Recent history has shown that some people can! Documented examples of “cyber-begging,” as it’s become known, can be traced as far back as 1998, but it first became widely known during the summer of 2002 when a twenty-something woman from Brooklyn, New York, started her own web site. She wanted to raise $ 20,000 to pay off her credit card debts, and she did it! Within 20 weeks, her website had received over two million hits and her debt was paid off.

Since then, there have been other notable examples of successful cyber-begging: a woman in 2003 who paid for her breast implants with donations she raised online; a family from Aberdeen, Maryland who in November 2008 raised almost $ 11,000 online and saved their house from foreclosure. So, how do they do it? And will it work for you?

There are two basic approaches to asking for money online: you can set up your own web site with your own domain name, or you can create a page on a site that is dedicated to providing space for people to do this. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods.

Setting up your own dedicated web site may appear to be the best, most successful approach to asking for money online. You aren’t competing with anyone else’s hard-luck story (that may well be more compelling than yours). Furthermore, all the “famous” successful sites have revolved around one person/family and their specific need for money. On the other hand, publicizing and driving traffic to you own personal cyber-begging site is easier said than done. The Internet is no longer a world where “if you build it, they will come.” So, unless you get an extremely lucky break and your situation gets picked up by the media or something else happens to send your story “viral,” you could easily spend the time, money, and effort to set up your site with no return.

Alternatively, you can tell your story on a web site that’s designed to allow people to set up their own page to describe their situation and ask for money. For someone who doesn’t have much experience administering web sites, this may be the best way to go. There are usually features you can select (such as presenting your link in a different color, or in bold, or closer to the top of the list), that will make your page stand out a bit in the crowd. Also, if you can create a compelling, well-written story with an eye-catching title, you may also persuade more site visitors to donate to you, rather than to your fellow “beggars.” Finally, this is a low-cost, low-commitment approach. Most sites allow you to advertise for a small monthly charge, and you can cancel your listing with no further obligation. You don’t need to secure your own domain name, arrange for personal web hosting, or design your own site.

Finally, no matter which approach you try, make sure you take advantage of any opportunities you have to bring traffic to your site through free publicity. If you have a Facebook or Myspace page, add a link to your site there. Do you regularly visit or post on a message board for one of your hobbies or interests? Check the terms of service to see if you are allowed to add a link to your site in your signature. Many grocery stores, libraries, or other public places in your area may have bulletin boards – see if you would be allowed to post a short summary of your situation and include the URL of your site. You may even want to invest in business cards (you can sometimes order them online for free or for a small shipping charge) or flyers – take these with you when you visit your local mall, park or other place where people congregate and pass them out or place them on car windshields. Anything you can do to make more people aware of your site will boost your traffic and make you more likely to succeed.

So, is asking for money online an option for you? You may never know until you try!

When you think of donating your car to a charity, then try and sell it to a charity to already familiar with or whose motive you believe in. Also the charity you are willing to donate your car should be a recognised one. If it not recognised, then in that case you are eligible for any kind of tax relief.

The best part about car donations is that, it can be in any condition.

Even if does not start, you can always donate it. The charity will never ask you to repaint or repair it. All they are looking for is the money they will be able to raise from your old car.

Nowadays as the car donations have increased, so has the convenience of its donors. Many of these charities have online websites. You just fill a few online forms and you done. This process is easy and takes very less time. Apart from the internet donations can also be done over the phone.

Towing of the car is also done by the charity.

They give you a receipt “NON CASH CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION”.

For donating you car, you will have to do some paperwork. You will need your original car documents. You will also have to estimate your car. This can be done by a local garage or an expert.

After the donation, it depends on the charity what they will do with it. If a car is in good condition, then it is in good condition, then they might use it for people kids and sick patients else they sell it.

If it sold for less than 5000$ , then the donor’s estimate is used for tax deduction. If sold for more than 5000$ , the organisation will give you an updated receipt and this will be used for the tax deduction.

Donating anything always helps someone in need. So many prayers are answered when you make a donation. Maybe a kid will be able to go to school or a lung cancer patient can get treatment.

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Donating to charitable organizations in our community and around the world is an easy way for us to give a little something back, to do our part in improving the lives of those who aren’t as fortunate as we are. Many people choose to donate a car to charity when they’re in the market for a new vehicle. A wide range of charities accept car donations to support the programs that they offer. However, even though car donations are common, it doesn’t mean that every charity that says that they’ll accept your vehicle is created equal. Before you donate a used car, make sure that you take the time to look into the charity you’re thinking of contributing to.

The first step is one of the most obvious, and yet it is one that many people overlook: make sure that the charity is actually who they say they are. We like to think the best of people and would prefer to trust them, but when you donate an auto, it’s important to make sure it’s going to an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) organization. Getting scammed means that your tax deduction could easily be disputed.

Along the same vein, look into what percentage of the gross proceeds of your car will go back to the charity. Any charity that only offers the net percentage is most likely trying to hide the fact that the vast majority of the proceeds don’t actually go to the cause you think you’re contributing to.

One essential step to remember is looking into your specific state’s laws for title transfers. The procedure for a car donation in Massachusetts may differ from a donation in California. Whatever state you reside in, though, make sure that the title of the car specifies that the charity is the new owner of the vehicle. Even in the case of a donation, the “Buyer” section should have the charity’s name. Otherwise, it makes it all too easy for them to turn around and resell the vehicle, making it look as though the title was transferred directly from you to whoever the new owner is. This can leave you open to legal liabilities that you really don’t want, as well as keeping the charity from getting credit for the donation.

Choosing to donate your vehicle to charity is a generous move. Make sure that it’s also a smart one by doing all your research.

Over the years, many people have chosen to donate a used car to the charity of their choice. Not only is it an excellent way to support a cause that you truly care about and believe in, many see the tax write-off benefit as an added bonus. Over the past year, car donations (along with charitable donations in general) have gone down, due to both a weak economy that has put a strain on quite a few wallets, and the opportunity for more profitable auto disposal options such as the “Cash for Clunkers” program.

However, the truth is that the number of people choosing to donate an auto went down even before the health of the economy did. In 2005, the Internal Revenue Service changed the laws regarding how much Americans would be able to claim as a deduction on their taxes when they donated a vehicle. Before 2005, a taxpayer could use the “fair market value” of the car or truck that they had donated to calculate their deduction. However, the new rules changed it so that the deductions would instead be based on the amount of money that the charity makes when selling the vehicle. To complicate matters even further, the amount needs to be verified beforehand by the charity.

As this is a federal law, it made car donation in Massachusetts and Montana alike less attractive to vehicle owners. IRS data shows that from 2004 to 2006, there were 68% fewer tax returns that reported the donation of a vehicle.

However, things might change soon, hopefully inspiring renewed interest in car donation from Los Angeles to New York. US Representative William D. Delahunt, a Democrat, has sponsored a bill intended to revise the rules laid out by the IRS so that those who donate cars will be able to estimate the amount of their payback at the time of the donation. The hope is that by revising the rules that have reduced the number of donations, more Americans will be prompted to donate their old cars and trucks when they’re in the market for a new vehicle.