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Today I spent 15 minutes of my time to drop off burnt-out incandescent light bulbs at the only place in town that accepts them. I was charged $1/bulb for helping the planet. The cashier told me to keep my receipt for "tax purposes", but was unable to tell me what kind of tax benefit I can claim.

The organization where I dropped the bulbs is considered a non-profit charitable organization.

So, is this deductible in any way?

(Of course this is backwards. To motivate people to recycle, a consumer should be paid back a deposit that is factored into the manufacturing cost. Oh, well.)

NL - SE listen to your users
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Boris Bukh
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3 Answers3

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If they charge a fee to accept an item, it's reasonable to assume the item has insignificant value, so the only tax-deductible bit would be the money you donated to their charity. What you describe sounds like a fee for service, not a charitable donation. The organization should provide a fee breakdown to show what percentage (if any) of the fee is a deductible contribution.

There could be some additional PA-only tax benefit, but I didn't come across anything in my brief search.

Hart CO
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They are certainly only suggesting that the money you pay to recycle the bulbs is tax deductible as a donation, assuming that they are indeed a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

Donations of goods are only deductible at fair market value. Light bulbs that no longer light up have no market value, so only the payment could possibly be deductible.

NL - SE listen to your users
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3

If a business incurs expenses in the process of its trading, generally those expenses are deductible.

Disposing of waste is generally held to be a deductible expense.

Josh
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