The rich pressuring the poor to donate money

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.

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.

First, 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

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

There are sites to check how much actually goes out. Check before you donate.

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!

- 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.
They do not, at least in the US.
- 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.

Shell's audacity too...

And redirecting you attention on to the "offsets" scam too.
Ever wonder why climate change is such a problem if 1.5 pence per liter petroleum burnt can undo the damage? Spoiler: it can't. You can't sequester CO² for that cheap, and CO² isn't the only issue. "Offsets" are not certified by any trustworthy third party, and companies intentionally don't pry too much, so they can say "Oh sorry, didn't know" if anyone investigates and discovers they did squat-all.

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.

EDIT: US companies cannot do this in the US you can claim up to $300 on taxes. This is legit in the US.

@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.
- They cannot claim it as profit if they are following the law.
- 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.
They cannot, and do not, claim your donations on their taxes.
They also store it in a bank before donating to collect interest on it cause why not?
Ah yes further proof that companies don't give a fuck about anything ixcept making more money.
- 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.

Or just...donate the perfectly good food they constantly throw out into the cadged dumpsters designed to keep homeless people out... Litteraly would cost them nothing...

"But if we feed them then those broke homeless people won't come in and spend their (nonexistent) money on our food!" -upper management

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.

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?

Just wait until you get a tip prompt on a self checkout kiosk...

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."
- Puppies do not recognize your silly imaginary borders and will commit zoomies across any such lines.
- 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.
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.

PSA: most Americans can get up to $300 deducted from their annual taxes through donations.

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.
Thats really jewish anyway to call a deducatable a donation.
- fucking antisemite
Yes, which is why you should donate yourself if you are inclined to do so.

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

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.

Please don't link to Reddit.

Sorry but this sub has a policy of crediting people rather than passing content off as their own. You can always just not click the link. Lifting content without crediting the op I got it from would be unethical
- It's already lifted from Twitter, what's the point of crediting the person who lifted it without credit?

I hate when any company I'm buying something from does this.

And I will never ever give these fools my actual phone number for discounts. Just use any area code w/ 867-5309 to get around this.

Yeah, 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, at least in the US. You are donating as yourself, and can use the donation as a tax write off if you would like.
- Source
- I didn't know that, and appreciate you saying that. I stand corrected. :)
They cannot and do not use your donations as a tax write off. That's not how taxes work.

I 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.
Not 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:
  https://www.fastcompany.com/90820744/cvs-asks-for-donations-at-checkout-but-are-customers-being-guilted-into-paying-the-pharmacys-debts
  “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.”

It's so they can get a tax write off for your donation.

This is a lie that I had hoped to leave behind on Reddit but lo and behold it's so pervasive that it transcends social circles.
Repeat after me: that is not how taxes work.
They do not get any monetary benefit from your donations, save for arguably good publicity. They do not claim your donations in their taxes. They do not get extra write offs on their taxes.
Those donations are yours and you could claim them on your taxes, if you were so inclined.
This. The icing on the cake is that this tax write-off affects the amount of tax dollars available for public assistance in the first place. If you want to help the poor, consider volunteering your time or donating to a legitimate charity.

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

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.

I 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.

I 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.

I just say no

If I choose to donate I will do it on my own terms thank you very much.

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.
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.

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

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.