What happens when you donate to a charity at a store checkout?

Question

I’ve seen large corporations brag about donating large sums of money to charity.

Are donations collected at checkout (E.G Checking out at Publix and the cashier asks “Would you like to donate to cancer research?”) included in those sums?

Are donations collected used for tax benefits of the corporation?

In: Economics

Answer 1

As many people have described, it is tax neutral for the company, but there are two other aspects of it that are not “neutral”.

First, the person donating doesn’t get a tax deductible donation (if they itemize). More annoying is company executives get recognition from the charity for “their” donations in the form of board seats, networking, reputation benefit, and sometimes other perks.

It’s a way of looking charitable with someone else’s money.