Cautions

Always consult a professional tax and/or legal advisor before making major financial decisions or donations. This booklet is a helpful start, but tax laws are complex and change frequently. While experienced conservation groups can help lay out your options, they are not tax professionals and can not legally represent your interests in these transactions.
Have a qualified appraiser determine your charitable gift’s value. If the gift exceeds $5,000, tax laws require that you get a written qualified appraisal of the value. A summary of the appraisal, signed by the appraiser and the gift recipient, must be attached to your tax return or IRS Form 8283.
Don’t overstate your gift! Due to recent abuses of conservation tax deductions in other states, the IRS is now particularly watchful for charitable deductions based on inflated appraisals, inflated conservation benefits, insider deals and other suspicious transactions. Penalties can be severe.