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.
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 $10 million to the American Diabetes Association, then collected money from customers to fund that pledge.
Those charities have huge overhead. Very little money goes to the actual cause.
There are sites to check how much actually goes out. Check before you donate.
My favorite one is when our utility company asks me to donate to help pay for people’s utilities like they aren’t raking in record amount of cash.
Why don’t you help by lowering the prices and being more reasonable? How do I even now you’re actually using the money I donate for people’s bills? That’s a crazy donation request.
Come on now, be reasonable. Lowering the prices would mean they can’t buy their 5th mansion. Just stop being selfish and give them a little more money.
Or just…donate the perfectly good food they constantly throw out into the cadged dumpsters designed to keep homeless people out… Litteraly would cost them nothing…
“But if we feed them then those broke homeless people won’t come in and spend their (nonexistent) money on our food!” -upper management
Those donations you make can help them deduct from taxes, right?
Here me out before accusing me of being a billionaire toady.
Not really, at least not in the US. Charitable contributions are a deduction from taxable income, not a credit, so it is still a net financial loss to donate.
Where the benefit comes is the PR and power over the organization they donate to and its sphere of influence.
It is a net loss if you donate your own money, in this situation Company isn’t donating from its own revenue. It is donating customers money.
If I donated 1000$ 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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Yes, which is why you should donate yourself if you are inclined to do so.
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.
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’.
Thats really jewish anyway to call a deducatable a donation.
fucking antisemite
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-scamsShell’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.
Just wait until you get a tip prompt on a self checkout kiosk…
I hate these donate screens because I have no idea where the donation actually goes and i don’t want to have to do a ton of research at the grocery checkout about whether its a good charity.
I have never seen a donation bin/screen/what have you that didn’t say what charity it was for.
If a business is collecting donations and then not giving them to the charities in question, that’s just fraud.
Yeah but just because they name the charity doesn’t mean its a good charity. Some charities just aren’t good ones to donate to and you’re basically just throwing money down a well when you do donate to them.
I don’t trust them to actually donate anyway. How would you ever find out? I suspect these are scams to hold the money and get interest off it even if they do ultimately donate it.
Not sure if this is 100% accurate, but I heard that how it works is they donate the money first, get the tax write-off and then try to hit people up at the checkouts to refund all the money after the fact. That way they get the tax break for donating the money without actually being out of pocket. I don’t know what happens if people donate more than the amount they spent, but I think I can take a reasonable guess.
I think that’s what CVS got busted doing:
“according to a lawsuit filed by a New Yorker, this money is allegedly being used to repay a $10 million commitment that the pharmacy chain has already made to the ADA, unbeknownst to customers. The suit accuses CVS of engaging in fraud and violating consumer protection laws in all 50 states. In essence, it argues, CVS is guilt-tripping customers in the checkout line to reimburse its own charitable donations.”
Even assuming this isn’t a scam, it’s certainly not something they’re doing out of the goodness of their hearts - must be some combination of a) a tax write-off and b) an opportunity to claim credit for other people’s donations. (“Stop & Shop is proud to have donated $275,000 this quarter to help families in need”)
You forgot c) the donation is processed via the corporation’s own charity foundation, and skims some money off the top to pay for the salaries of the people “running” the foundation. i.e. the c-suite of the company, or their relatives.
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. US companies cannot do this in the US you can claim up to $300 on taxes. This is legit in the US.@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.
They also store it in a bank before donating to collect interest on it cause why not?
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.
It’s still fine.
Some big international store in europe is asking to buy food from them for full price and donate it to food bank. Fuckin hilarious for making profit on charity.
PSA: most Americans can get up to $300 deducted from their annual taxes through donations.
There is a Mastercard ad running during Apple TV+'s MLB Friday’s that really goads me.
It’s an ad about how “we are powerful indivudually” but can accomplish “anything together”. This includes using your Mastercard where they’ll donate a SINGLE CENT per purchase (up to $5m, gotta cap it!) to “fight” cancer. And this commercial… yeah, it stuck with me thus did it’s job, but as the ad wraps up, with music swelling, all of these people come from nowhere to surround/hug an apparent cancer survivor (wearing the appropriate cancer survivor sweatshirt).
Gross. Just gross. Clearly it’s for some tax write off, and technically there’s nothing for you to do or spend, other than what you were already going to purchase.
But still, Mastercard could have just donated $5m outright. Or donated the amount of money they spent on that damned commercial, which was probably in excess of $5m given it’s high quality production values!
where they’ll donate a SINGLE CENT per purchase
And probably charge the merchant an extra 2c or 3c per transaction.
Bad example, grocery stores usually have small margins and aren’t making a lot of money off of you
This is actually true. But those small margins add up to a huge profit overall. Still, they probably could not afford to donate $20 per shopper.
Hard to believe this when our supermarket giants (Coles, Woolworths) are posting record billions in profits.
They aren’t ‘hard done by’. They make money hand over fist.
