• MobileSuitBagera@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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!

      • Piramic@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • axtualdave@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • fsk@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Those charities have huge overhead. Very little money goes to the actual cause.

      • 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.

    • 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.

  • malloc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • stankmut@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.”

      • cod@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s not how tax write offs work

        Jerry: So we’re gonna make the Post Office pay for my new stereo now?

        Kramer: It’s a write-off for them.

        Jerry: How is it a write-off?

        Kramer: They just write it off.

        Jerry: Write it off what?

        Kramer: Jerry, all these big companies, they write off everything.

        Jerry: You don’t even know what a write-off is.

        Kramer: Do you?

        Jerry: No, I don’t.

        Kramer: But they do. And they’re the ones writing it off.

    • phx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • zombuey@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.> e fair, I bet these companies strike deals with the charitable organizations to in turn raise visibility of those charities among the company’s customers. Furthermore there is no contractual obligation they actually donate that money or how. They could just be lying to you.

    • Sendbeer@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      @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.

      • Dravin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think it’s more just a PR thing to make you feel good about that company while using your own money.

        Yep, even without any direct financial benefit there is certainly a reason to engage in such behavior. The store gets you to associate it with the charity campaign and they’ll make hay over the amount of donations they helped collect and their partnership with the charity. Drives for employee donations can also be used in a similar manner.

    • seang96@spgrn.com
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      1 year ago

      They also store it in a bank before donating to collect interest on it cause why not?

      • zombuey@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • Spacecraft@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • sirkook@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I can assure you that nobody working at the fast food restaurant gives a shit if you donate to charity.

      • Spacecraft@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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?

        • TskUghPfftUhh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • danielton@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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.

          • lightingnerd@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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.

  • tomve_cz@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • TheDeadGuy@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Bad example, grocery stores usually have small margins and aren’t making a lot of money off of you

    • Izzgo@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • bfg9k@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • mcc@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Then they will say it is more efficient to merge the donations with regular revenue and make bulk donations every quarter or something.