Amanda,

Honestly, I would stay out of this issue.  You should refer the donor to a tax lawyer for assistance with their appraisal.  For your part on the 8283, you do not need to comment on the appraisal quality or verify/agree on the values stated, it only asks the museum to verify that you received the donation within the tax year.  There are strict laws about who can act as an appraiser for IRS purposes and you need to get involved.  If you recommend someone, you and/or the institution can become embroiled with any dispute.  This is the reason you should not recommend appraisers either, if I have a donor who wants/needs an appraisal.  I send them to the various national appraisal websites and I always recommend the appraisal FAQ’s on the website of the North Texas chapter of the International Society of Appraisers to learn more about good/bad appraisals.  I never recommend or comment on the work/quality of an appraiser.

 

As for the appraisal, you can want whatever you want for the University; the donor does not have to provide you a copy of their appraisal unless you have made that a condition of acceptance or you paid for the appraisal.   As for the university needing appraised amounts for its insurance/records…that is the University’s responsibility, which may require it paying for its own appraisal.  Often a donor provides a copy of an appraisal for your records, which is fabulous, but you cannot count of this or if it is sub-par you will have to pay for your own. 

 

 

 

 

Hello All & Happy Friday,

 

Please excuse the cross posting.

 

I have a few questions related to appraisals and IRS form 8283 that I’m hoping you can help me with.

 

First, the professional appraisal that has been provided to the museum by the donor will exceed the 60 day IRS limit, but just by about 6 weeks. I understand the law and I don’t want to fudge anything, but I would like to know what an appropriate course of action would be. Would the IRS accept an addendum by the appraiser stating that the values on the original are still current? Or would the donor have to get a completely new appraisal document from the appraiser? How have you handled such situations?

 

Also, the appraisal document only gives values for groups of like items, instead of for each item separately. For instance, a value of $3,000 is given for a group of 7 platters, but there is no value listed for the individual pieces. Although, from what I understand, the individual values do not have to be listed on the 8283 form, we need them for university inventory and insurance purposes. I’ve never seen an appraisal without individual values listed. Is this fairly common? Have you ever had to deal with such an appraisal? I feel it would be a conflict of interest for the museum to ask the appraiser directly for some additional information, but it wouldn’t be inappropriate for the owner of the pieces to ask, would it? If this appraisal could be considered sub-par because of the omission of key information, does the owner have the right to request the information without additional payment?

 

Can anyone share any insights?

 

Thank you,

Amanda Dyer

 

Amanda Dyer

Collections Manager

MSC Forsyth Center Galleries, Texas A&M University

110 N. Main St.

Bryan, TX 77803-3234

Tel: 979.845.9251

Direct line: 979.458.5461

Fax: 979.845.9252

Mail: [log in to unmask]

Website: http://forsyth.tamu.edu/