Valuation, and where not to go

Where a qualifying charity receives the money, a bidder may generally deduct only the amount paid above an item's fair market value, and the value must be disclosed at the time. For a land trust the auction part of this is straightforward and the adjacent part is not.

The auction items

• Guided walks, tours and survey places — a comparable guided experience rate, or the cost of staff time
• Camping and property use — a comparable local rate
• Goods — retail
• Expertise and consultations — what a comparable professional charges locally

Record the basis once per category and reuse it. Most of a trust's catalogue values itself.

The line: never appraise land or easements

Easement valuation is technical, heavily scrutinised and governed by specific qualified-appraisal requirements. Syndicated conservation easement arrangements have drawn sustained enforcement attention, and the sector's reputational exposure on valuation is real.

A land trust must not:

• Suggest what a donated easement might be worth
• Recommend a valuation figure to a landowner
• Sign anything that implies agreement with an appraised value beyond what the trust is required to acknowledge
• Promote the tax benefit of an easement donation as an inducement
• Offer a view on the value of donated land or a bargain sale

The landowner engages their own qualified appraiser and their own advisers. The trust's role is to receive the gift and acknowledge it accurately — and to say so plainly when asked, which landowners generally understand and respect.

Donated goods and services

The ordinary version of the same discipline. A business donating an item may ask the trust what it is worth. Record what they tell you, describe the item accurately, and leave substantiation to their adviser.

Be careful with land offered for the auction itself

Somebody occasionally offers a parcel, a lot or a timeshare as an auction item. That is a real estate transaction rather than a donation of goods, and it carries title, environmental liability, holding cost and disposal questions the trust should not take on casually.

Refer it to the board and to counsel, and be willing to decline a generous offer that would cost more to hold than it raises.

Write down what you decided

One line per category, with the basis. Trusts run auctions annually with similar catalogues, and a recorded basis means next year does not re-derive it.

General information, not legal or tax advice for your trust. Easement donation, appraisal and substantiation rules are technical and consequential — your own counsel and the landowner's advisers decide how any of this applies.