They want you to give them a tax break. It’s a scam like all capitalism is.
I feel like we need pinned comment every time this comes up because the mythology around this topic is so pervasive.
Donating small amounts along with a purchase saves a lot on transaction cost for the non profit organization.
Non profits love these things for volume.
Stores do not make money offering these.
If you dislike being pressured to donate at POS, by all means don’t do it, I don’t either!
Not only that, but most corporations like these match the donations, so you are donating 1$, they are donating 60k$.
I want potatoe coupons!
And they get credit for donating even tho it was actually their customers.
They do not get credit for facilitating your donation. This is a misunderstanding of how donating works based on when I looked it up after saying the same thing. They do it mainly to virtue signal. Either way I share the sentiment of the post.
In many cases they also cause the child hunger by paying their employees a wage so low that food assistance is required.
If only in the form of a tax break. You’re literally donating to the company asking for the cash.
I’ve been given the “corporations should be able to run their business how they want and government shouldn’t ban things like they banned weed” too many times on lemmy.
We should ban for profit corporations from doing certain things, this is one of them. We know they’re using the money as a tax writeoff. Ban this shit. Not everything is drugs.
That is wrong on so many levels, but it is so true. What if our brains actually think this?
I often pass an intersection where a woman is selling ice cold water bottles, and in the other direction, her husband (I assume) is selling flowers. I almost always buy 2 bottles of water from her.
I know that my money is going directly to help a hard working family, instead of some “charity,” where only about 20% goes to the actual research, while executives take millions in compensation.
I used to watch this happen all the time in South Carolina where I used to live… But I also used to do it myself, I’d be like, well hell if we’re gonna sit out here and panhandle, we might as well do it in a group! You knew one thing - that caused a need for - the other thing and then - that other thing would belong to the next thing. It’s a good base strategy.
If it could be verified that they at least matched donations, they might have better luck
Infuriates me as well. I don’t think they realize how it looks and sounds in 2026.
Well they will make the donation, but they’ll do it with your money, and then they’ll take the tax deduction for it, and reward themselves with a nice fat end of year bonus from the tax savings. Isn’t capitalism fun?
That’s not how tax deductions work. All the write-offs allow is for them to not count the money donated as income, so they make the same amount of money on the sale whether or not you donate.
The benefit to the company is PR or donating to a non-profit with a mission that aligns with their corporate goals. For instance, Bass Pro may ask you to donate to wildlands preservation non-profits that maintain environments in which people fish and hunt.
But isn’t it true that whatever they don’t pay in taxes via writeoffs, they get to keep and use however they want? They might choose not to give themselves a bigger bonus with those savings on taxes, but…I do doubt it for some reason
Write-offs are deductions from income, not reductions in taxes owed. They only get to deduct the taxes they would have paid if they had kept the donations.
Let’s imagine their annual income was $10,000,000. Their nominal tax rate would have them owing $2,100,000.
If they received a $100,000 in donations, that would make their income 10,100,000. But with the donations they could write off the 100 grand, reducing their tax bill by $21,000, for a total of $2,100,000.
Either way, they pay the same in taxes with or without the donations.
It ends up being net zero. They’re only writing off the money you donated. They still have to count the money you donated towards their overall revenue, increasing their tax bill, but then they pass the donation on, allowing them to write it off, reducing their overall revenue (and thus their tax bill) to what it would have been if you hadn’t donated.
If they donate money out of their own profits, they CAN write that off. Which of course is also money you gave them, except it’s money you gave them in order to buy their products, not for the purpose of having them donate it.
As far as the world knows, they did. It was the $20 you gave them.
and you didn’t give them $20 so they had to let the orphans starve, nothing they could do.
The store takes your donation, then they donate it and take all the credit.
“Store name” donated $1 million to XYZ Charity.
Not only do they get the credit, they also get tax benefits from the donation.
Update: Seems I am incorrect! Thanks for the polite discourse.
I don’t think they can get a tax break, but they definitely get the media attention.
Well if they donate that money to their own charity then I’m sure they figure out some way to keep most of it. "Admin costs " and such.
No, that’s not how it works. All they get from the donation is good PR.
A lot of billionaires have their own charities.
You telling me they only do it for PR?
I don’t believe it. That’s just not consistent with their greed.
I’m sure that the charitable image is part of it. But I don’t think they are doing it for only that reason.
They totally do, at least in the USA they do. Well documented corporate practice.
I thought so too.
Assuming the business is following the law, it will not include your donation as part of its business receipts, or income, nor will it claim the charitable gift as an expense.
In other words, your gift has zero impact on the store’s income taxes. Keep in mind that the store chooses the receiving charity, so make sure it is one you can support. As a customer, the donation will appear on your receipt and you can claim it as a charitable deduction when you file your income tax return.
https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/who-gets-tax-benefit-those-checkout-donations-0
The receipt thing is a lifeprotip. I didn’t know that.
I always donate directly to organizations because I didn’t think I could get taxes back on it if you donate in a store.
Thank you.
IANAL! Double check.
I prefer “NSA” to “IANAL” because"No soy abogado" means “I’m not a lawyer” in spanish, which is nice because then we don’t have to inadvertently think OP just told everyone he engages in anal sex every time we see the acronym.
Are your itemized deductions usually more than the standard deduction? If not it’s pointless to claim it.
You should at least Google the appropriate laws before being this confidently incorrect.
False. This is an oft repeated myth.
Bring the proof. Because it’s a myth.
So, let’s see your documentation please.
This old myth still… They do not get any tax benefits. That’s not how taxes work. The donation is your donation. You can claim it on your own taxes if you itemize deductions.
They make a dollar, they donate a dollar. No change to tax.
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I always decline, without exception.
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It’s not my duty to pull from my personal funds to support others. I ALWAYS vote to help others with my tax dollars.
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I don’t actually know where my money is going. I haven’t researched these organizations. I don’t know where my money ends up.
So what you’re saying is you’d rather have your money taken from you by force, as long as it’s lawful and you get to pretend you have a say in how it’s used…
I think what they are saying is that they’d rather the burden be distributed equitably across the populace instead of placing the burden entirely on good people.
You really think bad people pay taxes? They’re the ones collecting them!
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Donations through a non profit, where the CEO and/or some of their family are on the board and paid a big salary from those donations, so only a fraction makes it to the stated goal.
That money is going to pedophiles who will in return feed the children
