If you sent us a request between 28 July and 5 August, it did not reach us. A fault on our form stopped some messages from coming through. Please call (301) 820-7664 or fill the form again. We're sorry for the inconvenience.
Artwork appraisals for charitable donation, prepared in accordance with IRS Form 8283 qualified appraisal requirements. AppraiseItNow provides USPAP-compliant fair market value reports for donated artwork, helping donors maximize deductions with confidence.
IRS Form 8283 Qualified…the content of the appraisal absolutely met my expectations!
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT ARTWORK APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, RECEIVING CHARITIES, AND TAX PREPARERS.
.jpeg)
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 standardsIRS Form 8283
Once the deduction you claim for donated artwork passes $5,000, the IRS requires a qualified appraisal and Section B of Form 8283. We prepare the appraisal and complete the appraiser's part of the form.
A qualified appraisal is required for items reportable in Section B and in certain cases must be attached.
Fair market value is the price a willing buyer and a willing seller would agree on, neither under compulsion and both reasonably informed, measured on the date of the gift. For art that price lives in the secondary market, in auction results and dealer sales for the same artist, rather than a gallery's retail ask or a replacement figure carried on an insurance schedule.
What sets the number
A donated work is valued against sales of comparable pieces by the same hand, in the same medium, from the same period, at a similar scale and subject. A signed canvas and a preparatory study by that artist sit in different bodies of evidence, and the report names the sales the conclusion rests on.
Attribution
Before a price can be argued, the market has to agree on who made the work. A piece catalogued as attributed to or circle of is measured against a different set of sales than a fully autograph work, so we settle that question from the signature, the ownership chain, catalogue raisonné entries, and any authentication on file, and then value what the market would actually call it.
Condition
Condition is priced, not simply described. Overpaint, a relined canvas, fading or foxing on a work on paper, a repaired casting, and a replaced frame each pull a work away from a clean comparable, and we state how the market discounts what we find.
A common substitution
A replacement cost figure written for a coverage schedule usually sits well above what the piece would change hands for, and it is the exchange price, not the replacement price, that supports the deduction. We appraise donated art to fair market value, so an existing insurance appraisal is a useful document to send us, not the answer.
Our art appraisers value single works and multi-piece gifts for donors giving to collecting institutions. Every piece is described and valued on its own, because Form 8283 reports donated property item by item.
The work itself
Our appraisers cover the categories most often given to museums, university collections, and nonprofits:
Similar items
The qualified appraisal threshold is tested on groups of similar property, not only on single works, so several pieces of the same type are added together even when they go to different charities in the same year. Publication 561 treats these categories as similar items:
Collection gifts
A ten-piece gift is not one number divided ten ways. We value each work against its own sales record and set out the conclusion piece by piece, so the property the charity acknowledges and the property we appraised describe each other exactly.
Most artwork appraisals for charitable donation run online, from high-resolution images and the paperwork a collector already keeps, with onsite inspection when a collection is large or too fragile to photograph well. We date the report inside the window Form 8283 requires and work to the deadline the donor and their CPA name up front.
What you send us
The engagement starts with whatever already exists on the work:
$50,000 and above
A donor giving art appraised at $50,000 or more may ask the IRS for a Statement of Value before the return is filed, submitting the signed qualified appraisal, a completed Form 8283 Section B, and a user fee (currently $2,500 for up to three items of art, plus $250 for each additional item). We prepare the appraisal that request is built on.
What clients say we are known for
Across 80+ 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.
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!
Generally when the art was held for more than one year and the charity puts it to a related use, such as a museum displaying it in its collection. If the holding period is a year or less, or the charity's use is unrelated (for example, a non-museum charity immediately selling the piece), the deduction drops to the lesser of cost basis or fair market value.
No. A work donated by its creator is ordinary income property, so the artist's deduction is generally limited to the cost of materials, not the price a collector donating the same piece could claim. Dealers and short-term holders face similar basis limits. This rule is widely misunderstood and is a frequent audit issue.
A complete physical description (size, subject matter, medium, artist, and date of creation), the cost, date, and manner of acquisition, the work's history, and verification of authenticity, along with the value conclusion and its market support. Claimed deductions of $5,000 or more require this qualified appraisal, reported on Form 8283, Section B.
High-value art donations may be reviewed by the IRS Art Advisory Panel, and when the claimed value exceeds what comparable sales support, the deduction is adjusted downward. Overstatements that cross statutory thresholds add accuracy-related penalties for substantial or gross valuation misstatements, which is why our reports tie every value to documented comparables.