Nonprofit update

The following is a guest post submitted anonymously. The writer raises some good points and good questions. I’ll post it verbatim except for breaking two large paragraphs into smaller ones for easier reading. I hope the title of the post, written by me, fairly summarizes the ideas. 

One of the cool things about blogging is the ability to provide links to cited sources – if the author would like to forward links for the two quoted sources, I will add them.

Thanks to the author for taking the time to write. Here are his or her thoughts:

Thank you for providing a space for this conversation. I have studied this specific aspect of researching fair market value (FMV) of donated items in depth. As with any discussion we must ensure that we start with the same definition of fair market value.

Accounting guidelines state that FMV is the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date. To bring it into simpler terms, if I am selling apples and you are looking to buy apples, what price can we agree upon?

There are three points that I would make to start the conversation on the valuation of donated goods.

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Mr. Jeff Beaumont is a CPA working for a firm that focuses on serving the nonprofit community. His opinions are his own and do not reflect the opinions or positions of his firm in any way. Because he speaks for himself, I won’t identify him or his firm in any more detail. He doesn’t speak for me either.

He has experience as an auditor working on the issues discussed on this blog.  He took me up on my invitation for guest posts, so here is Jeff:

by Jeff Beaumont, CPA

There has been quite an amount of discussion, articles, and consideration given to recording gifts in kind.

However, I would like to ask nearly the opposite question: what about organizations that don’t record gifts in kind?

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