• Evans@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    Sure, but they also get to advertise that they donated X thousands of dollars to charity, while the truth is that the actual donors get no tax benefits at all. And like OP said, I’d rather use https://charitynavigator.org/ to do my own research before giving money to a corporation to donate to some organization that may be mishandling their funds.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Yup, it’s not about stealing money it’s about stealing goodwill.

      The customers at the grocery store don’t get thanked for donating $50 million to fighting awful childhood diseases, the grocery store does.
      Then they can use that to argue they’re good for the community, and deserve massive tax subsidies when they go to open their next store.

      Unrelated, I’ve talked with people who work in the corporate philanthropy part of a business, and they’re fine. They’re just happy to get to use their position to organize charity, even though they know the point to the business is goodwill not giving.
      It’s other parts of the business that then milk that goodwill in incredibly scummy ways.

      • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Then they can use that to argue they’re good for the community, and deserve massive tax subsidies when they go to open their next store.

        So there is tax benefits, just with extra steps?

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Yes, but not guaranteed, and usually “somewhere else”.
          Instead of avoiding paying $50M in federal taxes like a lot of people think, they might be forgiven $1M in taxes at the local level, pending some sustained employment level for some duration or another.

          Point being, they’re usually not planning to do the charity to save tax money, but to gain goodwill. They definitely intend to use that goodwill to make or save money later, and a common way is “you want us in your community, don’t tax us in buying the land 🥺”.
          They might also just use it for advertising so people forgive 5% higher prices.

    • eerongal@ttrpg.network
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      6 months ago

      The person who paid the round up donation (i.e. you) is the person allowed to use the donation for their tax benefit. If you save receipts with round up donations, you can deduct them on your taxes, but no one does that.

      • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It’s difficult for individuals to get deductions for charitable contributions under current tax code. You’ve got to pretty much donate upwards of twenty thousand dollars before any benefits.

        That stated number is different for every situation and is a rough estimate of average of what I see on returns.

        If Trump tax sunsets in 2025, things will revert back to more easily getting benefits from donations, but that’s a long way away and entirely reliant on who’s running the show at that time.

        • eerongal@ttrpg.network
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          6 months ago

          Thats only because of how the standard deduction works; If you have to itemize, then any amount of charitable donations can be deducted (up to like 60% of your AGI i think). Basically anyone needs to “outweigh” the standard deduction with their own deductions, because doing otherwise is worse. Technically i think you could forgo the standard deduction and use your own, even if you don’t go over the standard deduction, but why would you?

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            That’s the point: almost nobody benefits from charitable donations because almost everybody takes the standard deduction, so “but you can get tax benefits for donating!” is a red herring in almost all cases.

          • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            That catch on current code is that they combined exemption with standard deduction. Makes it quite a bit more difficult than the before times.

            I’ll leave it at that as I’m generally overwhelmed with unparalleled Internet tax expertise any time the subject arises.