• neanderthal@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • git@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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’.

      • LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • Janus67@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think that’s a myth as it isn’t income it goes into a separate fund to transfer 1:1.

      • neanderthal@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.