Remember kids, they also get to use the money they guilted off of you to reduce their tax liability because they get credit for donating your money!
This is not true. I am not from the US or a lawyer but these donations sould show up on your receipt and count as your direct donation to the charity. The store is just a middleman and does not get any benefit. Here is a random, semi recent article about it you can find a lot more if you look it up online.
does not get any benefitI’d say free PR is still a benefit. A bullshitter’s benefit
I used to work for a retail chain many years ago and I do not think this is true for everywhere.
When we were asking for donations it was tracked and if our location didn’t get enough donations our store manager would get talked to by his district manager. I don’t know exactly what happened to the money once it was donated, but I don’t think they would have been so adamant about getting the donations if they didn’t make anything from it.
This was like 20 years ago though, maybe its different now.
They do not, at least in the US.
It depends on exactly what the store is doing.
If the store is representing the extra charge as a donation to a specific charity, generally, the customer can deduct that.
If it’s far more vague, like, “Give $10 to help poor kids in Africa” the ultimate destination for the funds could be the company’s own ledgers, which it would then use for its own charitable activities and collect the tax deduction, as long as they “help poor kids in Africa.”
And some stores are just lying. CVS, for instance, was sued as part of a class action suit when, after the company pledges $10 million to the American Diabetes Association, then collected money from customers to fund that pledge.
Those charities have huge overhead. Very little money goes to the actual cause.
There are sites to check how much actually goes out. Check before you donate.
First, please don’t link to Reddit…
Many Of The Largest Charities In America Are Giant Money Making Scams
http://thetruthwins.com/archives/many-of-the-largest-charities-in-america-are-giant-money-making-scamsMy favorite one is when our utility company asks me to donate to help pay for people’s utilities like they aren’t raking in record amount of cash.
Why don’t you help by lowering the prices and being more reasonable? How do I even now you’re actually using the money I donate for people’s bills? That’s a crazy donation request.
Come on now, be reasonable. Lowering the prices would mean they can’t buy their 5th mansion. Just stop being selfish and give them a little more money.
Shell’s audacity too…
And redirecting you attention on to the “offsets” scam too.
Ever wonder why climate change is such a problem if 1.5 pence per liter petroleum burnt can undo the damage? Spoiler: it can’t. You can’t sequester CO² for that cheap, and CO² isn’t the only issue. “Offsets” are not certified by any trustworthy third party, and companies intentionally don’t pry too much, so they can say “Oh sorry, didn’t know” if anyone investigates and discovers they did squat-all.
Or just…donate the perfectly good food they constantly throw out into the cadged dumpsters designed to keep homeless people out… Litteraly would cost them nothing…
“But if we feed them then those broke homeless people won’t come in and spend their (nonexistent) money on our food!” -upper management
As much as I hate Kroger, Fred Meyer’s donates a LOT of food. Not sure about other stores but I remember a story saying they were one of the top contributors for perishables.
Those donations you make can help them deduct from taxes, right?
Yes, which is why you should donate yourself if you are inclined to do so.
Yeah if it is a person asking me to donate on behalf of a company I’m like “why would I let this company take all the credit?” That usually ends the conversation as they impersonate an NPC immediately having to go into ‘think mode’.
No, but you should still donate yourself. It allows you to focus on charities that you care the most about and which you can research as having the greatest potential positive impact.
If you give $1 to Grocery Store to donate to Cause, what happens is Grocery Store gains $1 of taxable revenue, then they remove that $1 of taxable revenue with the deduction. All the deductions do is make it so that Grocery Store neither gains nor loses money from the forwarded donations. They simply aren’t paying taxes on the money you gave them to donate.
The rules for this are good.
Here me out before accusing me of being a billionaire toady.
Not really, at least not in the US. Charitable contributions are a deduction from taxable income, not a credit, so it is still a net financial loss to donate.
Where the benefit comes is the PR and power over the organization they donate to and its sphere of influence.
It is a net loss if you donate your own money, in this situation Company isn’t donating from its own revenue. It is donating customers money.
If I donated 1000$ and claimed tax deductible it would be a net loss. But if I asked everyone for donations, raised 1000$, donated that and claimed tax deductible that wouldn’t be a net loss.
I think that’s a myth as it isn’t income it goes into a separate fund to transfer 1:1.
Even if it is revenue, it is still a net loss. All it does is reduce taxable income, which is still makes the donation a net loss. For anyone not aware, the current federal US corporate income tax rate is 21%. So if a company gives 100 dollars to charity, they only save 21 dollars in taxes, so they are still down roughly 79 dollars, depending on the state taxes of where they are incorporated.
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Yeah, this really bothers me. Because in reality, that company that you give money to at checkout is just going to bundle that all up and it’s a donation in their name, used as a tax write-off. You as the shopper might feel nice and warm and fuzzy, but you’re just giving a multimillion or billion dollar company a tax break. Just donate as yourself. If you want to help XYZ cause, do it on your own. My two cents.
That’s not how it works, at least in the US. You are donating as yourself, and can use the donation as a tax write off if you would like.
Thank you for the link. To be clear to anyone too lazy to click (which you should do to verify anyway) this is a source that confirms that businesses don’t get to claim your donation as their own.
I didn’t know that, and appreciate you saying that. I stand corrected. :)
They cannot and do not use your donations as a tax write off. That’s not how taxes work.
I hate when any company I’m buying something from does this.
Just wait until you get a tip prompt on a self checkout kiosk…
Don’t tip on those things. The company supplying those things are getting the cut. And it’s mandatory. They are an office space scam.
Then they will say it is more efficient to merge the donations with regular revenue and make bulk donations every quarter or something.
Just FYI this is a sort of scam.
The company donates the money on your behalf and they get the tax write-off for your donation while also appearing philanthropic for PR purposes. that’s why they do it.EDIT: US companies cannot do this in the US you can claim up to $300 on taxes. This is legit in the US.
They also store it in a bank before donating to collect interest on it cause why not?
@zombuey I’ve heard that a lot, but it is apparently not true unless the company claims your donation as a profit and then writes it off, which negates any tax benefit. I think it’s more just a PR thing to make you feel good about that company while using your own money.
Ah yes further proof that companies don’t give a fuck about anything ixcept making more money.
Furthermore, there is no contractual agreement on how or when they donate that money. So for example those companies might and likely will hold that money in trust to the non-profit. That way the company can use money as a hedge on taxes in future fiscal periods if they had an excess.
To be fair, I bet these companies strike deals with the charitable organizations to in turn raise visibility of those charities among the company’s customers.
I hate when they pull this shit at drive through fast food. “Would you like to round up to donate to our charity?”
Who knows what the person taking my order thinks about this charity, and what they might do to someone’s food who says no.
Edit: The fact that merely implying a fast food worker wouldn’t be a complete perfect human being gets so many downvotes says a whole lot about this community.
I can assure you that nobody working at the fast food restaurant gives a shit if you donate to charity.
How can you assure me of that lol.
You think nobody at a fast food place is capable of thinking someone is an asshole for declining to donate to charity? And then acting on that?
I used to work fast food and retail, both which forced employees to ask customers to donate at the till. We hated doing it. It is awkward for both the customer and the worker. I would get anxiety when donation drive time of year would come round, and I’d feel relief when the customer either just said no or yes, and didn’t yell at me for asking. The cashier REALLY does not care if you donate or not. And the cashier usually does not make your food, it’s usually someone else doing the cooking, and the cooks aren’t paying attention at all to whether you donated or not.
On the other hand, I have heard people ask that question, answered yes, and then checked my receipt later to find out that I just handed $0.57 to round out the cashier’s drawer.
Same. I got lectured so many times by customers who insisted I was stupid for daring to ask them and acted like I had some sort of personal stake in the charity.
Then most of these same people would buy a ton of lottery tickets when I was in retail.
PSA: most Americans can get up to $300 deducted from their annual taxes through donations.
Unfortunately that was only for 2020 and 2021. Normally donations go under itemized deduction, and unless your total itemized is greater than standard deduction, it probably won’t directly benefit your taxes.
