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Artwork appraisals in Alabama for donations, estate tax, insurance, and divorce, prepared in accordance with USPAP and IRS requirements. AppraiseItNow appraises paintings, sculptures, prints, photography, and mixed media across Alabama, including Birmingham, Huntsville, and Montgomery.
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT ARTWORK APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, ALABAMA COURTS, LENDERS, INSURERS, AND MORE.
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Owner & CEO
Joe founded AppraiseItNow to make a certified, USPAP-compliant appraisal as simple to order as anything else online. A former Bain & Company strategy consultant, Joe leads the entire team and specializes in strategy, growth, and the firm's tech capabilities.
Personal Property Appraiser
ISA Accredited Member with 30 years in the trade, from running estate sales and an auction gallery to appraising luxury apparel, furniture, artwork, antiques, and business assets, primarily for IRS tax filings.
Personal Property Appraiser
ISA Accredited Member specializing in Asian art, with a Master's from SOAS and a Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art. Ashley chairs the ISA's Antiques, Furnishings, and Decorative Arts committee and appraises for charitable donation, insurance, and equitable distribution.
Client Success Manager
Manages each engagement from the first enquiry to the delivered report, and keeps you posted at every step along the way.
International Society of AppraisersAccredited Member
The Appraisal FoundationAuthorized by Congress as the source of appraisal standardsAppraiseItNow appraises artwork in Alabama for charitable gifts, for estate and probate filings, for insurance schedules and for property split in a divorce. What the state holds runs from Southern regional painting and folk art through studio pottery to contemporary work bought in Atlanta or New York, and each of those sits in a separate market with its own record of sales.
Regional painting
Landscape and genre painting by artists collected in the South often sells through regional houses rather than national ones, so the evidence for a single canvas comes from the salerooms where that name actually changes hands. A thin national record is not the same thing as a thin market.
Folk and outsider art
Yard art, quilts, painted wood and clay carry value that turns on the maker, the period of their work and its condition, none of which a price guide holds. Recorded sales of the same hand are what a figure rests on.
Mixed estates
A collection usually comes with silver, jewelry and furniture in the same house, and an executor wants one date and one set of figures across all of it. The art is measured here, and Alabama personal property covers the contents around it.
Every report names a standard of value and an effective date before it names a figure, because the sales it then cites are chosen to sit around that date. Getting either one wrong is what sends a filing back for a second look.
Fair market value
Both ask for the price the open market would have set on one specific day: the day the gift was completed, or the day the owner died. Sales clustered around that date are what support it, and a retrospective value is written back to the day itself.
Replacement value
A carrier is pricing what it would take to put a comparable work back on the wall at retail, a number that sits well above the one a tax filing uses. When no equivalent is for sale, the report says that plainly.
Alabama has no statute written for art, so two general rules do the work. One keeps a collection held for personal use off the assessment return. The other follows a purchase home from a gallery in another state.
Household goods
Not listed
is what Alabama asks of tangible personal property kept for personal use in a home
The rule that implements the personal use exemptions in Code of Ala. 1975, sections 40-9-1(11) and 40-9-1(18) defines household goods as furnishings, appliances, utensils and other tangible personal property used in or around a residence by the owner and their guests, and not used for business purposes. Under it, the taxpayer is not required to list or assess any household goods used exclusively for personal use in the home. The line is drawn by use rather than by value: the same canvas moved into an office, a gallery’s stock or a company collection falls outside that definition and is reported with the rest of the business property. A written value answers the second case, and it is the document a donor, an executor or an adjuster asks for in the first.
Use tax
4 percent
is the Alabama state rate on a work bought from a seller outside the state, before any local rate
Alabama’s general state rate is 4 percent for sales tax and 4 percent for consumers use tax, with city and county rates added on top of it. A buyer who takes a work at a New York sale or from a gallery in another state and brings it home owes consumers use tax on that purchase. It matters twice for a value. The cost of putting a comparable piece back on the wall includes the tax a replacement purchase would carry, and the records kept for that filing are often the cleanest evidence of what was paid and when.
What clients say we are known for
Across 100+ published AppraiseItNow reviews the picture is consistent: every one is from a client who paid us for an appraisal, and the three things they raise most often are that they would hire us again, how quickly we answer, and how much research is visible in the report.
The appraisal was done very well. Since he was a local artist here in Charleston, SC, they took the time to study and review Jim Booth’s art. His work has made him extremely famous, which can make an appraisal challenging, but they did a superb job and clearly explained how they arrived at the appraisal value. I highly recommend Appraise It Now and will use them again for all my artwork.
Artwork Appraisal for Insurance Coverage
AppraiseItNow did an excellent job appraising our unique art collection. Joe was always prompt and responsive, and he and his team delivered a thorough, well-supported appraisal in just a couple of weeks, even during the holiday season. I was genuinely impressed. Thank you for the great work!
Artwork Appraisal for Insurance Coverage
AppraiseItNow was amazing! My father passed with a large volume of artwork & I had no idea what it was worth. Their team was incredibly helpful and quick to respond with text and/or email to any questions as well as a status update along the way. Highly recommend!
Artwork Appraisal for Probate
I recently requested a retroactive appraisal for fine art from AppraiseItNow. I received excellent service from intake to delivery. The appraisal was delivered on time and the content of the appraisal absolutely met my expectations!
Artwork Appraisal
From the start they were very responsive, price competitive, and had a quick turn around time. Thank you so much to Joe who was very sweet in responding to my emails; I am looking forward to utilizing AppraiseItNow for many years to come.
Very thorough and professional — great communication and outstanding service. Highly impressed with their work!
Given the USPAP-compliant nature of AppraiseItNow’s appraisal reports, we prepare our deliverables for major legal, tax, and financial reporting purposes for individual and commercial clients.
Popular uses of our appraisal reports include:
Auction record databases such as Artnet, Artprice, and AskART, along with auction house archives and dealer sales, form the backbone of an artwork valuation. We assemble recent sales of comparable works, adjust for differences in artist, condition, and provenance, and reconcile them into a single supported conclusion rather than quoting a price guide.
No. Insurance scheduling uses retail replacement value, the cost to replace a piece at current retail prices, while estate and tax work uses fair market value, which is often lower because it reflects auction and secondary-market evidence. Using the wrong standard leaves art under-insured or invites IRS scrutiny of a tax filing.
A qualified appraisal and Form 8283 Section B are required when you claim a deduction of more than $5,000 for donated art. Items claimed at $50,000 or more may be referred to the IRS Art Advisory Panel for review, so the report must identify its method and the specific comparable sales relied on.
No. Alabama imposes no state estate or inheritance tax, so artwork passing at death is valued for probate administration and, in larger estates, federal estate tax purposes. We prepare fair market value appraisals as of the date of death to support those filings.
