You should keep records to show how you arrived at the fair market value of any gifts in kind your charity received. These documents might include:
- invoices for the item or for similar items that show a retail value;
- published price lists, advertisements from flyers or Web sites, etc.;
- newspaper or Web site listings of stock market prices;
- copies of appraiser or valuator reports; and
- details of any calculations done to arrive at the final value used on a tax receipt.
Remember that prices change over time. What may be an obviously fair price today may be very hard to support in the future without documentation produced at the time the gift was made.
