StrikerThe rich pressuring the poor to donate money
EmergingDystopiaYeah, 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. 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. :)
PSA: most Americans can get up to $300 deducted from their annual taxes through donations.
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.
Who Gets the Tax Benefit For Those Checkout Donations?
If you’ve shopped recently at your supermarket, there’s a good chance you faced a choice at the checkout counter: Whether to give to a charity. But like so much else these days, these giving opportunities have become controversial.
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.
demvoterI 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.
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.
SlartibartfastNot 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.”
Just FYI this is a 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.
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.
TheDeadGuyBad example, grocery stores usually have small margins and aren't making a lot of money off of you
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.
bfg9kHard 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.
MegaUltraChickenMy 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.
norapinkI 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.
iAmTheTotI 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.
FreeDiverXFirst, 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-scams
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.
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.
How bout the fact if they achieved their goals, they wouldn't have a problem to have a charity for and thats a bigger concern to them. They'd rather not help people than not exist. They may as well just pretend they are the poor people their campaigning for. Or be technically homeless and donate to themselves while living in charity(company) owned residence
Clover🍀 Nah the charities are usually legit. But the companies aren't doing it out of the goodness of their heart, it's a massive tax write off as well as free PR.
People that give money for those charities are giving those companies free tax write offs.
You donate $10 or whatever. The company can then claim that $10 as a write off via donation to that charity. Campaign as a whole (either regional or national) collects $1M USD. Corporate accountants write off donation. Tax liability reduced.
That's not how tax write offs work. The only way to claim that money in a write-off would be for the business to also claim it as revenue. That would even out, with no tax savings. Businesses also don't handle donations that way, they usually serve as a collection agent that just passes your donations on without being able to claim it towards their revenue or their tax write offs. The only person who can write-off their donation is the person who actually made it.
The reason businesses do it is for marketing. They get to put out a press release saying "They helped donate $10 million to puppies without borders."
No, that's not how it works. In order to do so, they'd have to first claim the money received as income.
That said, there are scummy things that they do. At the least, it's saying "we [bigcorp] donated $1,000,000 to charity" when in reality all that they did was collect it. In other situations, companies like Sobey's doesn't actually pass on food bank donations as cash, but rather have then as credit to buy products only from Sobey's.
That's messed up.
Those charities have huge overhead. Very little money goes to the actual cause.
CriticalResist8They do, in a dystopian way; they pass off your donation as their own.
Those donations you make can help them deduct from taxes, right?
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.
Thats really jewish anyway to call a deducatable a donation.
fucking antisemite
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 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.
PCHIf I choose to donate I will do it on my own terms thank you very much.