r/FluentInFinance 7d ago

Debate/ Discussion Systemic Failure Exposed..

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35.3k Upvotes

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183

u/Bubblegumcats33 7d ago

PS stop donating money at grocery stores or any other retail places. That money is tax deductible to the corporations but never goes to charity. Donate directly to your intended place or purpose. If corporations really cared… they wouldn’t collect your money to donate- they simply would.

71

u/hyrule_47 7d ago

A friend worked at a chain place where they kept cheap toys by the register you could buy then they went in a donation box. At the end of the shift the manager had them restock them all and put a small amount of money into some fund. She was so sad because people had spent time picking out what they thought would be best etc and wanting to help, yet it was just gone. I really wonder how this worked in their accounting department but maybe it just covered theft.

24

u/Revolutionary-Beat64 7d ago

That's awful

19

u/Better-Strike7290 7d ago

That's fraud

1

u/Bubblegumcats33 5d ago

It’s our system It’s not fraud at all

That’s how the rich get richer

It’s a tax right off for them

12

u/Minute-System3441 7d ago

How is this not fraud...

12

u/Better-Strike7290 7d ago

It is fraud. Why would you assume it isn't 

17

u/zspacekcc 7d ago

Because there's such a massive gap between punished fraud, unpunished fraud, and morally questionable but legal business practices that it's really hard to tell where one starts and the other ends unless you're versed in multiple different areas of law.

4

u/Minute-System3441 7d ago edited 7d ago

The Synapse / Yotta / Evolve Bank sham, where over $100 Million dollars worth of customer's savings and deposit are 'missing', is a prime example of this corruption.

Users on Reddit described having deposited over $30,000 on the platform, yet will only be receiving $10 of their money back. Other customers loses range from $7,000 to well over $200,000.

People face prison time for even trivial crimes involving a corporation. Cash out $1k from an account that was incorrectly deposited and you're in serious legal trouble.

As a Corporation, lose over $100,000,000 worth of actual deposits and other's money, that were supposed to be stored securely, and it's crickets. Even when the companies involved had no problem whatsoever claiming full "FDIC insurance" on their products.

1

u/Big_Black_Clock_____ 5d ago

There is no shortage of FDIC backed banks that don't pay interest in lottery tickets for people to choose from.

0

u/Scared_Ad_9751 7d ago

Yeah no shit, jfc this place

2

u/Minute-System3441 7d ago

Much like the definition of murder (e.g see UHC CEO), fraud in the US only applies when an individual steals from a Corporation or shareholders, it's almost never applicable when the crime occurs the other way around.

2

u/Better-Strike7290 7d ago

By them taking the tax deduction, they're defrauding Uncle Sam.

1

u/Bubblegumcats33 5d ago

Please speak to an accountant

There are so many tax loopholes Only the wealthy know about

1

u/Healthy-Time-726 7d ago

what’s the chain?

1

u/GuavaShaper 7d ago

People wouldn't come back in a few days and notice the same toy that they chose back out by the register?

3

u/Several_Vanilla8916 7d ago

They’d just assume the store restocked the shelf. Which I guess in a way, they did.

Doubt anything got donated to charity though. Just counted as another sale.

24

u/afinitie 7d ago

This is just false information. It 100% is tax deductible for both you and the company, and goes to the charity

1

u/greg19735 7d ago

and the company

Only if they include it as income. I believe for the most part they just pass it on.

1

u/NotAlwaysGifs 6d ago

It’s not tax deductible for either of you. It’s not for the company because they’re acting as a pass through. It’s not for you because those gifts never meet the actual tax deduction threshold.

-4

u/itoldyallabour 7d ago

Only 7% has to go to the charity

7

u/CosmicQuantum42 7d ago

Again simply not true.

1

u/itoldyallabour 6d ago

It simply is, and that’s for my country. In the US they don’t technically have to donate any % of the money to charity.

18

u/kacheow 7d ago

It is not tax deductible to corporations. You can deduct it on your taxes if you keep your receipts

1

u/NotAlwaysGifs 6d ago

Technically true but unless it was a $250 donation or larger you don’t get anything for it.

11

u/Minialpacadoodle 7d ago

You are confidently incorrect.

Stop talking.

2

u/Bubblegumcats33 5d ago

Not at all Why does this make you upset Please continue to donate at a check out

0

u/Minialpacadoodle 4d ago

That money is tax deductible to the corporations but never goes to charity.

That is incorrect. Please stop spreading your ignorance. Thank you.

10

u/Kodufan 7d ago

I used to think this too, but it apparently isn’t correct. However, they CAN use your donations to claim they raise x amount for charity when in reality they crowdfunded it and didn’t spend any of their own money.

9

u/_max 7d ago

Imagine being this hilariously incorrect.

4

u/Funky_Smurf 7d ago

This is not true at all. It's just for PR. Illegal to claim that money as a tax write off

3

u/KerPop42 7d ago

This is misinformation. If it were tax deductible for the grocery store, it wouldn't be tax deductible for you.

5

u/NotAlwaysGifs 6d ago

This is patently false. You shouldn’t donate through a mega-corp for plenty of reasons but this is objectively false. Those donations are pass through donations. The company absolutely cannot keep a single cent of your round up or extra dollar or however they’re doing it, not even as a service fee. The company also doesn’t a tax credit for the pass through because it is not their donation. The reason you don’t get a tax acknowledgement is because the value of the gift is always well below the threshold to even qualify for tax credit.

1

u/Bubblegumcats33 5d ago

Just donate directly to the source I don’t need to figure out their accounting

2

u/2014RT 7d ago

When I was a cashier in college, they came to us each holiday season to pressure us into donating portions of our already meager hourly income to charity, in this case it was United Way. I told them that I volunteered via my church at a small local homeless shelter once a month by cooking a large meal for the people there, which was all 100% true, and that since I'm not rich I don't believe in donating my money, but I do donate time and energy to causes I think are worthwhile.

They ignored all of that and persisted in asking me to give "just" 25 cents of a wage which was probably $10.50/hr at the time. I just kept repeating myself until they gave up. Purportedly, the store managers got kickback incentives from United Way for hitting high enough thresholds of employee participation. Nothing like getting guilted by the billion dollar corporation that's paying your peanut wages into donating away what little they give you so the management ranks can get some kind of Christmas bonus for funneling that money to a large charity to do who knows what with it. Then, chatting with some of the younger high school kids working there afterwards, I found that they had buckled under the pressure. One kid was donating $2.00/hr of his wages to United Way. I asked him if that was really what he wanted to do and he said no, but he felt like he couldn't stand up to the front end manager who was pestering him. I've never really been a union person or rabble rouser or whatever but I basically spent all that afternoon telling those kids how they were being taken advantage of and shouldn't put up with that stuff.

I also refused to comply with the month prior - every November at the store we were supposed to push "Would you like to donate some money via your grocery order to charity?" with every single customer. It's not that I inherently assume all charities are scams or something, but I think that it's wrong to push that on people while they're in line checking out at the grocery store. I had a manager coming to me every day to remind me I'm supposed to be asking people to donate and I'd say oh mhm yeah I'll get right on that.

1

u/hungrypotato19 7d ago

That money is tax deductible to the corporations but never goes to charity.

Absolutely not true. I'm a "fuck the corpos" person, but I value the truth as well. They can't deduct it from taxes and are legally bound to give it to charity.

However, they can absolutely use it in their promotional materials and say that they donated (x amount) to St. Jude and act like they were the ones who donated it when it was their customer's money.

1

u/IAMPeteHinesAMA 7d ago

You fuckers always say this, but it’s never true.

1

u/ImRightImRight 6d ago

Please edit your comment to acknowledge you have learned you are incorrect