I purchased a coupld of "Charmilles Eleroda 200" CNC EDM machines at auction for an advantageous price.
Pictures of them are here:
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They depict two machines, lots of pictures from the auction to wade through.
Each weighs perhaps 2,500 lbs total.
I am trying to decide if I should scrap and part them out right away, or try to market them as usable. If I scrap them, I get my shop space and my money back right away and have the circulation system, EDM parts and boards on shelves. They have electromagnetic chucks and a lot of other useful stuff.
On the other hand, they seem to be too good to scrap and maybe there would be a buyer. So. My question is, are they hopelessly obsolete?
Additionally, a question: If I scrap them, I am sure that I will get all boards and such and will try to sell them for replacement parts. But, perhaps, inside EDM machines, there are some fun parts that are specific to the EDM process, and are usable for other projects or homemade EDM designs or whatnot?
For example, all welders have a current gauge with shunt and that is always easily sellable. What about EDMs?
Even if obsolete from a production perspective, if operational, these may have instructional value. Check to see if the technical schools in your area are interested, and you may make out much better donating the machines and receiving the tax deduction, if you are making enough to be paying taxes.
Custom gunsmiths may also be interested for burning barrel ports or the tee slots for a falling block action.
A die sinker EDM can be very useful, but it's a terrible choice for something like a magwell, i.e. removal of some 4" thickness of a "soft" material like aluminum. Wire EDM is what is sometimes used instead of broaching.
The way charitable donations should be reported, is as follows: the donor should deduct the "fair market value" of the donated property. If I purchased the property recently, at an auction, only the purchase value is allowed to be deducted.
For example, I bought these EDMs for $200 plus 15% buyer premium (each), so $230 would be how much I am allowed to deduct. This would bring me tax savings of $80-90. Clearly not a good deal to buy a machine for $230 for a $90 tax benefit, but this is how donations should be reported.
Of course, this is not how "most people" do it. Typically people "donate" garbage, like underwear with shit stains, useless clothes, wrecked old cars etc, and deduct a lot more than those articles really are worth. They also donate broken scrap machinery and report exorbitant values, like you are alluding to.
That's a "donated item" tax scam.
Another "donation" scam is "donating" money to churches, which are basically social clubs benefiting churchgoers. But that is allowed to be deducted due to 1st Amendment and religious lobby.
This is the unique reason why we are "the most charitable nation in the world", because of these tax scams people report a lot more value donated than they actually give up.
I do not like to play this game and try pretty hard to avoid bullshit from appearing on my tax return.
I often get approached by charities who typically want to buy warehouse items. They simply give me blank donation receipts saying "just put whatever you want there". I do not use those because I do not want to participate in this particular scam.
Great idea. I am sorry if I appear cranky, I just feel strongly about that donation stuff.
The wire EDM would be what I'd need for the AR receivers. The price sounds reasonable but currently I don't have a building to put it in. I'm not sure how expensive they are to run, they seem to feed wire pretty fast. It would be nice but now isn't a good time being I don't have a place to put it where I could use it.
Ignoramus26150 wrote in news:wridnZjtaa5qIOPPnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
OTOH, if you sell one sucessfully, you've just established the fair market value and can donate the other at that value deduction. If you don't want them hanging around, that may well be easier than finding a second buyer.
On 11/9/2013 3:11 PM, F. George McDuffee wrote: ...
...
Unfortunately, for Iggy's business these would I think fall under the special rules for "inventory" rather than as capital equipment or other business property which effectively negates them being able to be deducted.
From the IRS Pub --
" Inventory If you contribute inventory (property you sell in the course of your business), the amount you can deduct is the smaller of its fair market value on the day you contributed it or its basis. The basis of contributed inventory is any cost incurred for the inventory in an earlier year that you would otherwise include in your opening inventory for the year of the contribution. You must remove the amount of your charitable contribution deduction from your opening inventory. It is not part of the cost of goods sold." ...
As a board member of a qualified foundation associated w/ such a tech school/comm. college, we do get donations of such equipment that is indeed very useful. But, we also get offers simply looking to unload junkor, less often, useful stuff but that just doesn't fit any current or foreseeable need that we have to refuse.
It's certainly _possible_ a local trade school might find a use but in general for this kind of stuff we've found the manufacturers are pretty good in filling in if asked with suitable-for-training gear.
But, while as Iggy goes on to say he's not interested in trying to run a tax scam and his business model doesn't make it terribly likely he'll ever get advantageous tax position vis a vis a sale, there's still the charitable side of it that if were feeling munificent and a local outfit had a need... :)
Is there much of a market out there for them? Id have to say yes.
Industry is in great distress across much of America...and companies cannot buy new machines, but they can buy good used machines...of which there is a glut.
The scam that a lot of people run, is that they donate junk and declare that they donated valuable things.
I think that such a donation will look really stupid on my tax return, and any auditor with half a brain will right away figure out that my intent was to scam the government, not to give up real value to benefit charity.
I am disgusted with that stuff and do not do that. I make small donations of money, which is a lot less questionable.
Which is what I posted the supporting IRS rules for.
By "effectively negates" I intended (and thought the intent would be clear) that it's the _value_to_you_as_a_deduction_ that is negated by the fact that the deductible portion is only the basis you have in it so that there's no point in it from a tax standpoint.
Good man. I've been turning down receipts from Goodwill for decades. Real donations are made from the heart, and not with the expectation of a tax deduction. A "Christian missionary" neighbor grabs up every tax break he can for his donations.
I am all for using all available tax breaks. But I do not want to be tax cheating by means of making phony donations. Especially I do not want to do it on a corporate level, a S corporation making tax donations in kind, looks funny.
Dang. Love to have one at work. I hate getting broken taps out by tornado milling them. Do you know if they work? Might be able to get owner to buy the blue one. We're in Grand Haven, Mich. We'd pick up, or send a truck, if I could talk them into it.
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