"I am curious to know if you use an official/form and/or authorized
stamp for the valuations you give for tax purposes and also, if there
have been any known problems with people (donors or not) forging these
valuations in order  to take advantage of the tax deduction?"

Our finance department issues an official printed income tax receipt for
the total value of the item/collection, and the individual values are
not itemized. In our case the receipt is designed to be used as a tax
deduction, so as far as I know none of them have been forged/altered.

You do occassionally get donors who are not happy with the value, (we do
sometimes inform the donor verbally of the results of the evaluation),
and we try to explain how the value is determined etc. And we do
occassionally have donors who decide not to donate the collection in the
end, and as long as the actual the tax receipt has not yet been issued,
there is usually not too much hassle if they want the collection back. 

And you do occassionally get donors who have received their tax
deduction, used it, and then want their collections back. Once an income
tax receipt has been used, the donor cannot get the collection back
without repaying the "current fair market value" to the tax-man! (a long
and complicated process!)

Carol Reid
Collections Manager, Archives
Canadian War Museum
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