Getting rid of old cell phones (Solved)

Lankysean

So the company I work for has a slew of older phones lying around and we're trying to get rid of them. Some of the more modern phones like BlackBerry Bolds and iPhones we're going to sell to a place like gazelle. Our problem is that some of the older blackberries and android phones aren't on the list of phones gazelle wants so we're looking for alternatives. We'd like to get some money back for them as most are in good shape and still work; even if we only got $5 a phone I'd still add up to a nice chunk of change. We don't want to use craigslist, amazon or ebay. Any suggestions?

dlinfiniti

instead of getting straight cash for them, you could consider arranging a big donation to one of those charities that gives them to old people to call 911 with and see if they would be able to furnish you with a nice tax writeoff in return which would be nice too

L Ron Howard

I was going to suggest that most women's shelters also accept them, for a charitable tax write-off.
I know there are organizations, though I don't know in which country you reside or if there's a large enough organization in by you that does that.

KalTorak

Sometimes grocery stores have drop-bins for old phones, I know almost every Whole Foods I've been in has a thing you can toss an old cell phone into, they give them to deployed soldiers or something.

Lankysean

dlinfiniti wrote: »

instead of getting straight cash for them, you could consider arranging a big donation to one of those charities that gives them to old people to call 911 with and see if they would be able to furnish you with a nice tax writeoff in return which would be nice too

That's what I was considering but my boss seems to want to try and sell them off first. How exactly does the tax write off work? Would we get some sort of receipt or something with a value to declare?

Dhalphir

Lankysean wrote: »

dlinfiniti wrote: »

instead of getting straight cash for them, you could consider arranging a big donation to one of those charities that gives them to old people to call 911 with and see if they would be able to furnish you with a nice tax writeoff in return which would be nice too

That's what I was considering but my boss seems to want to try and sell them off first. How exactly does the tax write off work? Would we get some sort of receipt or something with a value to declare?

pretty much, yep.

Metalbourne

If you're a sprint user, they have a buy back program where the phones you send in go toward a credit on your account.

Shadowfire

I mean, depending on the carrier you could try to list them on Craigslist. But you'll only get a few dollars for them. The tax writeoff probably wouldn't be worth the same as cash, but they would be declared for a higher value than you could get in cash for them, making it about a wash and leaving your company doing something good for people in need.

grouch993

On the tax writeoff, you list everything that was given and assign a fair value to each and work up a total value. The place that receives the gift usually provides a non-specific receipt. That paperwork all goes to your tax preparation people.

http://www.irs.gov/uac/Eight-Tips-for-Deducting-Charitable-Contributions

Lankysean

grouch993 wrote: »

On the tax writeoff, you list everything that was given and assign a fair value to each and work up a total value. The place that receives the gift usually provides a non-specific receipt. That paperwork all goes to your tax preparation people.

http://www.irs.gov/uac/Eight-Tips-for-Deducting-Charitable-Contributions

Looks good to me, I'll show this to my boss. Thanks. This can be closed.

Bartholamue

Edit: Never mind