Tax writeoff on a charitable donation of property in Virginia

[Edward B.]

I attended a local REI meetup last night and the guest speaker was an auctioneer with 37 years of experience in RE investing. He was selling a strategy of buying properties on cheap because they were good for nothing except to hold the world together, but that had significantly higher assessments, and donating them to a 501C3 or 501C4 charity for the write off. His argument is that the IRS states that the value must be determined by a certified appraiser and at full market value. Since Virginia requires all city/county assessors to be certified and all property to be assessed at FMV the assessed value meets this mark. Furthermore, the IRS is very unlikely to challenge another government entity on it's value.

This peaked my curiosity because I am getting crushed on taxes this year. If you can buy property for 25% or less of its assessed value (depending on your tax bracket obviously) this seems like a viable option to offset your gains or income. If you picked up a property at auction for $1000 because it was a disaster and no one wanted it but it was assessed for $20000. That could theoretically save you ~$4000 in taxes. 25% tax bracket minus your costs.

Has anyone heard of or used this strategy before? Can any experts/CPAs comment on their opinion of this strategy (@Brandon Hall @Amanda Han)? If this is a viable strategy, are there any other states where it would work?

[Brandon Hall]

@Edward B. sure you could do this but I don't think it's feasible at the numbers you are citing. Your $3k net gain ($4k savings minus $1k purchase) will be decreased by the appraisal (you have to pay for that), various write-ups, closing costs, and tax prep fees. 

Additionally, there are limitations in the amount you are able to donate with respect to your AGI. This link will give you a good starting point for research. 

At the end of the day, I don't think it's feasible. It's not scalable unless you are also scaling your AGI. Just seems like a lot of work for a couple grand. Think bigger!