I think a lot of this is the digitisation of the change bucket at the till. When we all paid in cash you would be handed 3 pennies and now need to find somewhere to put it. It’s not worth anything and now you need to carry it about. You could walk off and not take it. Here is a pot you can put it in and it will make you feel better about yourself.
The same as the tip request it’s a new spin on an old concept. Perhaps it’s a bit wooden but it’s a shift from manly cash society to mainly card payment systems.
I really hate it when I pay with plastic and they hand me a smaller piece of plastic back as change.
As a cashier comfortable speaking for all cashiers, these sorts of checkout charity and pushing them verbally or on the pinpad should be illegal. So overwhelmingly sick of them. Regardless of if they get a company a tax break or not, streamline the checkout process for the sheer quality of life improvement. Ban them.
I don’t trust random charities. I do plenty of charitable giving, but I vet the organizations I give to. I don’t know how the random charity on the screen uses their funds.
In the end, the corporation gets their tax deduction from your donation.
Or worse, the “Sick Kid in Hospital” is Mitch McConnel.
Write-offs aren’t magic. There’s no way to write off a donation in a way that will reduce your tax burden to lower than it would have been without the donation.
If you donate $100 to charity and write it off, it reduces your income by $100. If you pay 30% in taxes, it reduces your tax burden by 30 bucks, so you’re still losing $70 versus not mak8ng the donation.
The difference with these round-up measures is that the donation is only given if the customer pays for it, so it breaks even after the cost of implementation/overhead of the system.
Yes, but the donation is not coming from their income. They give 100 bucks away they did not earn and therefore were not actually taxed on. But those 100 bucks are still reducing their income. So, taking your numbers, they pay 30 bucks less without any loss on their actual income.
Not really. What they get is free publicity and goodwill.
Except they don’t. You give them $1, they write off that exact $1, they get no tax benefit.
What this really gives them is good will. They can say they donated 10 million to charity that year and everyone glazes them for it.
Edit: also yes, they might be donated to really shitty charities.
I’ve seen stores donate to there own foundation. I’m sure it’s all by the book as they can’t keep the money for themselves but you don’t know where the money is going. If it’s going to cancer research just say so. I shouldn’t have to look on your website to see the last 30 charitys but no idea where it’s going now.
“Would you like to help our megacorp reduce its tax bill, pweeze?” is what they’re really asking. Absurd.
Edit: Differs between countries and relevant legislations (having to explain internet 101 in 2026!?).
This is wrong, and it’s wrong for obvious fucking reasons. Like Accounting 101 reasons. Like, go to prison for fraud reasons.
Let’s say you own a business. You make sales and you partnered with a nonprofit for donations. You ask your customers to donate to that charity.
When you take that money, you set it aside. It does not belong to your company, specifically because you wouldn’t want to inflate your profits or offset your losses with money you don’t have. If your company loses money and you took this money, then you wouldn’t even be able to write off the full amount you took because you wouldn’t have any taxable income.
So, since this money isn’t yours, when you donate it, you do not write it off your company’s profits. Because it didn’t come from the company’s money because you don’t want that to touch your profits. If you do write that off, that’s a little something financial experts like to call fraud.
But, let’s pretend you did take it, and counted it in your profits because you like to be stupid and risky. When you donate that money, you are writing off the portion of your profits that would have been added. So, even if you did donate that money yourself to write-off, you already took it as profits.
This isn’t even a US thing. This shit wouldn’t be legal anywhere. If it was legal, then they could donation roulette to continuously donate the same dollar over and over to write off all of their taxable income, and, honestly, it would be easier to just buy art. Art is the real fucking tax scam.
Please donate to our corporate approved charity you’ve done zero research about to see if they’re even a legitimate charity doing something you actually want to support right now at point of sale impulsively!
This is not true. Customers can claim their point-of-sale donations on their taxes, but the business that collects the donation can not.
https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/who-gets-tax-benefit-those-checkout-donations-0
Edit: My link is for USA, but my understanding is that the principle holds in most places.
This is not true
…for your jurisdiction.
Welcome to the international internet.
I can’t find any evidence for this being true in any country that speaks English as their primary language. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
Picking the UK at random, this took 10 seconds to find so I doubt you tried to find anything:
Your limited company pays less Corporation Tax when it gives the following to charity:
- money
- equipment or trading stock (items it makes or sells)
- land, property or shares in another company (shares in your own company do not qualify)
- employees (on secondment)
- sponsorship payments
You can claim tax relief by deducting the value of your donations from your total business profits before you pay tax.
It also allows the company to play PR games with how much “they” give to charity.
… But they would be donating the value of the money you gave them. So that money shouldn’t be profit, and this would be zeroed out. They did not gain invisible donation money.
Congratulations on being wrong in ten seconds.
You’re extraordinarily angry in both your comments to me. It baffles me as to why.
Perhaps take a moment to read the things I’ve said and the things you’re assuming I meant, and then compare the two.
It’s possible for companies to give money to charity (nobody has suggested otherwise) and gain significant benefit for themselves in doing so. Both parties win, and done within local laws.
Still worth knowing. Which is why your verbose rant is baffling.
I don’t see anything about point-of-sale donations in that link. Of course a business can write off an actual donation they make, but they’re not donating anything if they are just collecting donations from customers and passing the money along. I can find no evidence to the contrary.
I think it comes down to who the tax authority sees as being the source of the funds. It seems in the UK, at least, the payer to the charity is the donor and, if that donor is a company, they get a corporate tax break for it.
The charity gets their money either way (otherwise would be fraud), but the company isn’t necessarily doing it out of the goodness of their heart: their tax bill goes down as a direct result.
Personally, I think the recipient charity getting the benefit of all those rounding up transactions is a good thing overall. But my original comment was about not allowing yourself to believe a comfortable lie: it’s business, not philanthropy. Or perhaps, philanthropy in the typical rich benefactor style of giving - it’s still a mutually beneficial transaction.
But they don’t give any money to charity, you do. I would be extremely surprised if that resulted in any reduction in taxes.
Wait fuck, those donations actually go to the company tax relief?! I would be 😠 if I wasn’t so
You have to always think, why would the company want to do this, then find the shittiest reason, and that’s usually the reason.
Yeah. You’re donating to a dedicated account managed by the company and they in turn make a huge donation at the end of the year for maximum tax write off. So you donate and they benefit
Incorrect. You get credit for the donation; it does not affect the company’s taxes. Its just that most people don’t claim the tax credit, because most of us don’t donate enough to itemize rather than take the standard deduction.
Is that on a company by company basis? Because I used to think the same until I saw a receipt from Panda Express that said to hold on to it so you can claim the donation on your taxes. Which would mean Panda can’t claim it on their taxes.
Usually they can’t do that.
You’re not giving companies a tax break you’re just contributing to their marketing / good will budget. They collect so they ‘can be good cooperate citizens’ and hand someone a giant check and make a press release.
Not saying someone in the company would get a kickback for their choice “charity”. Or that the charity chosen is a tax shelter for board members.
Even if their not getting direct tax relief, never assume goodwill.
Once again people in your comments are like America is the only country in the world. 🙄
So happy he annoyed you off! made my morning! Thank you for for your tears :)
This is provably false, please stop spreading this lie.
Its different in different countries.
What countries is it different in? I couldn’t find any evidence of it being true in any English-speaking country.
Its actually proved true. This is an actual thing thst happens.
A company here or there may illegally do it, but on the whole, it is illegal, it is generally traceable, and it is not what many of the megacorps typically do.
If they do and you have proof, get a class action lawsuit going, you will win.
Also you can legally claim the round-up donation as a deduction on your taxes.
They get 0.28 that goes to an affiliated charity to spend money talking about how great that grocery store is.
Let me do my donations as I want, when I want, to who I want.
McDonald’s was the most ridiculous. Like you’re a multi billion dollar company, I’m one guy. Donate your own change.
Except the rondald McDonald’s house. That’s a seperate foundation and is really beneficial.
If you don’t know they supply housing to families near major hospitals if the family needs to travel far for specialty care.
They do a lot of good, they are also a huge tax shelter for McDonalds corp. and its board members…
mcdonalds do help kids, unlike CVS/walmart,etc.
True, but serving families of kids with serious medical issues is worth it in my opinion.
Lol
