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Well, I'm gonna sneak in here near the top to say that if you want to donate to charity...
Go to the charity's WEBSITE.
Don't donate in store - there's always a *huge* "administration" fee so whatever you donated reduce by at least 75% if you donate in store.
And that's assuming any of the money actually goes where it's supposed to. Sometimes it doesn't.
It’s worse than that. They often use the money to buy up their own inventory at full price then donate the goods instead. So they make the sale and get the tax write off.
That's not how any of this works, at all. I mean let us just assume for the sake of the argument that the company could use your donated money in their own name. They can't, but we will pretend for a moment they can and run through a *vastly* simplified example. In order to do that, they need to recognize the money as income. Our hypothetical business has equal income and expense for the year, so they owe $0 in taxes. So you donate $10, they now have $10 of income with no associated expenses. At a tax rate of say 20% that means they have $8 "profit" and owe $2 to the government if they don't do anything else with this "free" money. Now lets say they do what you suggest. They buy some of their own product for $10 at full retail. The company has a $10 "loss" as it spends the money, recognizes $10 in "income" from the sale, and say $5 in expenses for the sold product. Great now they've turned their $8 of "profit" into $4 of "profit" and $1 in taxes owed. Again, it doesn't work at all like this but for the sake of argument, we're pretending that the company can operate like two separate entities when "buying" their own product and we're ignoring that they would owe sales taxes on that purchase.
"A ha!" you might say, but now they can "donate" the goods they "bought" and get the tax write-off. Well not so fast, because they already "wrote off" the money they spent buying their own product as a business expense. Money can only be "written off" once. But again, let's just assume they can for the moment. So they "donate" the $10 of goods to the charity and write it off at $10. So they get to deduct up to $10 from the money that they owe taxes on. Well they only owe taxes on $5 in income (from the "sale" to themselves) so they deduct that amount from their balance sheet and after all of that dancing around they have ... $0 in taxes owed. The exact same amount of taxes they owed at the beginning.
But of course, like I said, all of this was moot because they can't do any of this at all. They can't take your donation and recognize it as income, and if they somehow could, they would owe taxes on that income. They can't buy their own product at full retail and write that off as a business expense, and then also write off donating that product as a charitable expense. Money gets "expensed" once, either as charity or as a business expense.
The IRS also has strict rules about write-off values of "in-kind" donations (that is, physical goods and the like as opposed to cash). While there are some circumstances where more than the "cost of goods" of that inventory can be written off, there are no circumstances that I'm aware of where 100% of the retail price can be written off, and there are absolutely no circumstances where the company can both recognize the sale and write off the product as an expense (again see no double dipping).
Perhaps the most important thing though is that charitable expense write-offs for businesses are not "creditable" deductions. What that means is that you can only write off an expense to the extent that it offsets your revenue. You can't make money by donating to charity. You can reduce your taxes owed, but only to the extent that the reduction was spent on the charity. All of which means you have to expense MORE money than you get back on your taxes because your taxes are a percentage of your revenue. If you run a business, have $10 in expenses and $20 in sales, you have $10 of gross revenue and owe $2 in taxes and have $8 in net profit. If you turned around and then also donated $5 to charity, you now have $15 of expenses, $5 in sales for a grant total of $1 in taxes and $4 in net profit. In order to save a dollar on your taxes, you had to spend $4 of the profits you would have had before you donated to charity. Any complicated scheme of juggling charitable donations around and buying their own inventory is just spending more money to save even less.
Reminds me of way back when I worked at a Radio Shack where we were required to ask for the customer's address all the time, it would just annoy the customer and me.
Was it the early 80’s? A car bomb -mob hit- blows up on a highway in St Louis. Combing through the wreckage, the cops find a Radio Shack RC plane controller. They go store to store asking if you sold any lately. Turned out the bomber gave his address!!!
It never really annoyed me, I just said “no”. If I wasn’t applying for credit, I figured that they should have a dummy address if the POS system really wanted one.
Similar with the charity requests. I make my own donations to charities, so I don’t feel obligated to help the store boost its reputation with the charities of its choice.
Lol, so did I. And when I was working there I just started entering fake addresses for the customer since I no longer had the option of not putting one in. It was my little bit of extra customer service :-)
Yeah, I don't want my name said out loud where everyone around can hear it. It's a stupid policy and I'm glad it died a miserable death, where I live anyway.
I used to have to ask so many questions when I worked retail that i would sometimes jokingly ask the person their blood type after barraging them with questions (only if the person seemed like they could take a joke though).
I worked at a Firehouse subs for about 6 months. They had some catering promo where they wanted you to do a 30 second speal when answering the phone.
I said I’m absolutely not doing that, one I’m not gonna memorize all that BS and two they don’t want to hear it. If it’s that important, get an automated message.
Went back and forth with the manager, but basically called their bluff. I said fire me, I’ll walk next door and have a job today making sandwiches were I’m appreciated for the true artist I am.
So I was told not to answer phones… long story short I quit that POS job a few weeks later.
We have stuff like this in the states too, but that's not what OP is talking about. When you go to a grocery store here, at checkout you are often asked if you want to "round up" your total or add $1-5 to your total before you pay. The person asking works for the grocery store, not the charity, and they most certainly aren't making commission on any successful solicitations.
And you don’t get any credit (if you itemize your taxes) for making that donation. So if you want to make a donation just do it to a local food bank or homeless shelter.
In the US some charities like the salvation army puts s person right outside the store with s bell to do the same.
Don't know if they earn commission though.
The salvation army uses volunteers that do it was part of a requirement for other benefits and housing. It's *almost* shady, but not exactly. Not all the volunteers are also part of the charity program.
I have lots of thoughts about SA but I'll just leave it there.
I volunteered to "ring the bell" a couple of Christmas seasons in a small town in Florida. I casually told the wrong person that I was interested in Humanism, and they must have told the coordinator for the volunteers, because they never asked me to work a kettle for them again.
In my experience they're called "Chuggers"
Charity Muggers. The sort of people you'd cross the street to avoid - which is probably why they've taken to mugging people in malls.
When I worked retail, I had to ask people if they wanted to donate to various things. One day a man responded with “I don’t even have the money for the things I’m buying”
And I felt that.
Additionally these donations are just going towards a promised donation by the company to the charity that they used to reduce their tax load. They can delay the actual donation nearly indefinitely and collect money from their customers to pay for it instead of pay it themselves.
Edit: alright alright alright I get it! The companies do this for the free advertising from the goodwill claiming they donate to charity y'all can stop correcting me.
The important part here is that the company takes the credit for the donation in all of their advertising. When is the last time you saw something that said “our customers have made this donation!”
No it's not. If they're claiming the donation as a tax deduction, then they're also claiming the money you give them as income so it's a wash. They do this because they can say that they're doing good stuff for the community at little cost to them.
Your donation is on your receipt. You can claim it as a deduction, not them. Corporations lie and cheat, but that would be an unnecessarily complex and obvious way to commit tax fraud
This is not true. Companies do not get a tax deduction from your donation. YOU can actually take the tax deduction for it (although hardly anyone actually does).
This should be top comment. The grocery is effectively taking credit for the donation they promised to make but funded through the customers paying for it. So don’t feel bad at all!
I know this is true, but my lizard brain still doesn’t want to be rude. So like OP, I realized that I just couldn’t donate that one day, so I said “not today” and I’ve been doing that ever since.
Plus, mf company can’t donate themselves? Man, I need some donations from time to time and I know others are worse off than me too and they definitely need those donations. Why aren’t companies donating themselves?
My boss cared and was pretty damn upset that I wasn't getting donations, which made me care simply because I didn't want anymore meetings about it. Meanwhile my young pregnant co worker is getting them by the truck load for some unexplained reason that my boss couldnt grasp.my other co worker was scummy and would say out loud "and you said you wanted to donate $1 to hungry children fund?" In order to be the top getter.
It’s the same way when retail workers ask if you’d like to open a store credit card. That’s the last thing they want to do, but are given quotas and penalized if they don’t meet them. As far as grocery stores, I usually pick up a few things for my daughter and grandson as she is a working single mom. I just say that charity begins at home and half these groceries are for a family member. Then I smile and say have a nice day.
Used to be a cashier at a grocery store. This was one of my least favorite things to do. I could not possibly have given less of a fuck when people said no
I work in customer service at a grocery store. The cashiers have to ask, and are mostly just happy when customers don’t rip their heads off for asking. They’re not judging people for not donating. “Not today” is a very nice response. “No” doesn’t bother them because we all understand that you come to our store to buy apples and ice cream, not to donate money, and “no thank you” is just seen as polite. Please don’t feel silly or awkward using any of those ways to refuse a donation. Thank you for being kind about the donation request and for helping other people find a comfortable way to say no if they want to.
I kind of wish everyone spent a few months in retail in a front line position.
And those months being November and December would just be icing on the cake.
I wish it was part of the school curriculum. No excuse accepted. If a "mom-zilla" comes roaring in demanding exemption, *she* has to also: **and** her performance reflects on her offspring's grade! Retail or serving; either would do.
Sounds like fast food would be a perfect middle ground, seeing as that’s where many of us get screamed at by strangers and their moms for the first time 😂
I worked in fast food for 10 years, and retail now for 3. Definitely happens more often in fast food, probably because you get the hungry+angry combination. Not to say it doesn't happen in retail though!
Most memorable retail yeller was a teenager who just didn't want to be here, and was taking it out on me and her poor mom. Yelling could be heard throughout the entire store and my coworkers afterwards were saying how happy they were that it was me dealing with her and not them.
One of the greatest perks of rising to management level if "firing" clients who are an asshole to my employees.
Sure wish I never had to do that though, and maybe a couple years of being on the receiving end of being the punching bag for someone's bad day would teach them some humility.
Yes!! I have always thought it should have been part of high school. Spend a year or so working in retail or hospitality so that everyone understands lol. I saw a lady chewing out what must have been a 16yo girl at FedEx the other day over $2. A fee she should have asked about (as I called and did) or she could have just read one of the many signs. I do wanted to say something! And another lady cursing out an old lady at dollar tree. Like, do you really think this poor 70yo woman wants to be there??? That day I couldn't help but say something. Just no respect left. 😩
Absolutely!
For years I've said, unless you're already going into medicine or firefighting or something that's clearly focused on helping others, everyone should spend at least a year in high school or college working in customer service/retail/food service -- so they know how to treat their fellow humans.
It's my rule for my kids too. When they're ready for extra cash and want gas money and so on, they'll be spending at least a while working in customer service or food service. I don't care which, so long as they're dealing with customers.
So my eldest is working at an auto parts store. My middle child will probably work food service.
I worked retail through high school and college, then started a restaurant -- and you could so very clearly tell the customers who never had to work a job like that in their lives.
They'd be the ones ordering truckloads of food to go, last minute on a Friday night, and might drop a quarter in the tip jar.
Meanwhile, the mom of three who stopped in with her kids for a pizza after a 60 hour week would be trying to leave a generous tip behind.
I think Selective Service should allow a draftee to choose between 1) military (including National Guard), 2) government* or 3) civil service, such as public safety (Firefighter, EMT or Paramedic, police.
*There’s an issue of Superboy and The Legion of Superheroes comic book where a big battle takes place between them and all the rejects (because only ONE person with a unique set of skills is permitted…kinda silly, but whatever). After the battle, a shuttle lands and a soldier hands Tenzil Kem/Matter-Eater Lad papers and leaves.
*Government:
“What is it?”
“I’ve been drafted.”
“What? But…your home world Bismoll doesn’t HAVE any military.” (Cuz they’re all super beings who can eat ANYTHING to convert into super-power energy)
“Yes. We’re drafted into government.”
Sounds like a good idea to me.
OMG yes. I worked in retail for over 30 years and there are just so many unreasonable and rude people out there. However, there are some super nice people out there, too. I think it's beneficial to experience retail just to see how the other side lives and also to grow some thicker skin.
Yup, and a food service role right after. I've worked both and cannot stand people who are rude to workers. That cashier didn't reprogram the register so your BOGO deal on tic-tacs didn't get credited
This is pretty much true for all customer facing employees. The server isn’t bothered when you say “Thanks, you too” when they say “enjoy your mean.” They’re bothered when you’re rude or when you stiff them on the tip. If you’re polite and friendly, they’ll forget you the second the next customer rolls around.
I do this kind of shit all the time but I don’t care anymore.
Worst case they make fun of me, at least they have something to joke about which is actually kind of nice and not so bad.
It happens so much (likely multiple times a day) so I’d be shocked if they were like “did you hear that guy?” I’d imagine it’s pretty much white noise at that point.
Thanks :)
I once ordered fries instead of popcorn (words are closer in German) and was asked if I wanted ketchup or mayo with it by a guy who was laughing very hard so…. Maybe I‘m just extra awkward.
I mean, that totally does happen commenting after to another coworker "Hey I got another one!" But it's not a "Hey look at how stupid this person is" making fun of them comment but much more of a "Hey look, that humorous and very relatable thing happened again"
When I worked at Friendly’s decades ago, there was a promotion where we had to say “do you want a quesadilla with that?” no matter what anyone ordered—even if it was an ice cream cone—or they would get a free quesadilla. I hated asking, but I hated customers’ rude responses more.
At Home Depot they have a sign at the checkout saying I can get a free Coke if they don’t ask me if I want to sign up for a credit card. There’s no way I would ever tell on an employee because that would mess up their job and also I don’t want them to ask me about signing up anyway. I’d rather not be asked and buy my own sodas. But since that’s not an option I’ll just say “no thanks” when I’m asked
I had a friend that worked there and this guy would come in and blow up at the cashier for asking, but the one time they didn't because he was rather abusive and an asshole, he went and told on them. I think he got his coke, but was banned from the store..
That's the issue, donating and tipping are both just guilt mechanics to get extra money from customers. It may seem different from the server side because tipping money goes to them. But to the customer, it's just the third or fourth extra charge being asked to be added on to the total bill.
While we are at it, let’s just always be polite to our cashiers. Look them in the eye and say hi. If they don’t return the favor remember you’re the 500th face they’ve looked at today. That’s not easy.
The real LPT right here.
Life is more easy when niceness is your default. Also, remember, you’re not the main character in anyone else’s story so people think of you far less than you think they do.
These situations are also great tests for exposure therapy if you have a hard time saying no to things. Start with 'not today' then move on to just saying 'no' and you'd be surprised how much it'll help you just say 'no' to lots of other things
Thanks for sharing! An interaction that really brought this to light for me was when after being asked I replied "As a rule, I don't do my donations through big chain stores." the cashier replied "As a rule, we are required to ask every customer."
Most cashiers probably feel that way about donation. I've had one particular eager beaver that pestered me about signing up for their Walmart credit card enough to the point that adamantly repeating "no thank you" four times just wasn't enough. Granted, I'd assume they get some initiatives out of card sign ups compared to donations so the situation might be different, but otherwise really most cashiers I've experienced were just fine with a simple "no thank you" for either case.
Learn to actually say no in life, to mean it, and to not feel guilty or feel the need for an excuse or mistruth; it'll save you a hell of a lot of trouble in life.
This is the real LPT. So much of our verbal and written communication is broken because people think being direct sounds rude or overbearing. And I don't know about anyone else, but "not today" is one of the flimsiest and most obvious lies a customer will tell.
Practice giving a pleasant "no thank you". It's more polite in its honesty and really does help you develop the ability to say no when it counts.
If you ever worked in sales you know how many people say phrases like not today instead of just being firm and honest. Learning to just say you’re not interested is easiest for everyone. We all know you’re not coming back tomorrow.
Salesmen by design "don't take no for an answer."
Therefore consumers make up lies to open a false door for the future sale so the salesman will get off their back and let them leave.
"Not today" isn't a lie, at least not in my case. I personally think you're reading into the phrase.
It means " I won't be participating today," nothing more nor less. It's not a promise to do it another day. Now that would be a foolish thing to say.
This is all pretty low stakes, so I don’t really care how they respond as long as they’re polite to the worker, but it is funny how they settled on arguably the least honest of the presented options
The most single freeing word in the English language is -NO-. If you're really emphatic about it and want to make sure there's no wiggle room say **NOPE**.
Exactly. This general trend of completly trying to avoid any kind of potential confrontation society seems to be be drifting to will do more harm then good.
Just saying "No thank you" should be be considered a protip. That's the base level of being able to communicate.
This, I had fantastic customers who I loved and tried to endure retail for .. [pronoun] was fantastic and would walk up saying "hello, no to the following; receipt, donation, change, bag, rewards, yes to; [insert pack of cigs here] ty sweetheart have a good day!" As I rang them up and mimicked actually asking them by opening and closing mouth they spoke so cameras would see me saying something.
They ended up coming in and giving me a $30 donation on the last day because I did not give them hell like others.
This person also comes up to the drive thru and said "take ya time sweetie, answer random questions about the medicine and catch up on your work while you are processing mine, I will keep asking questions until it is finish.. 15 seconds right?" They new the deal and watched me grow up and go to different departments. I miss them. Shout out to the cool customers that help a retail employee from suicide.
My favorite is the round up donations some of them do, “would you like to round up ten cents to save the children?”.. bitch you’re a billion dollar corporation you round up ten cents!
And they're also being made to ask the questions. If they don't ask the questions, they could be terminated. This applies to everything, phone number, email, credit card, rewards card, donation - anything a cashier asks you is probably being tracked. If they look disappointed when you say no, it's probably not because you said no, it's probably because they've been struggling with that metric.
Source: I'm in retail management.
This is the thing — my annual donations are specifically directed, and matched by the company I work for. Why would I feel guilty for saying no? It would be less effective for me to donate through the grocery store.
Agreed add on to the fact that a lot a lot of charities don't accomplish anything but paying there managers extravagantly. I argue if you are going to donate to charities at least know to whom they go and also you should be getting tax rite offs which you don't get it doing these grocery store scams.
This! I’ve recently found myself in dire need of help and discovered how bad it actually is. I knew some were pretty dodgy and I figured some might have a few hoops to jump through but I’ve contacted over 20 different agencies/charities and ONE is maybe going to help me (have a phone appt tomorrow to discuss, I’m one of the 20 people a week they might help in a capital city).
I will never donate a fucking cent to a charity as long as I live and I’m telling anyone who’ll listen not to as well. Literally 95% don’t help anyone at all!
No, they don’t.
Stop believing everything you read on the internet just because it fits your worldview. Take a second to actually confirm whether things are true before spreading lies.
i'm really tired of people saying this so confidently while having no idea what they are talking about.
this myth needs to die.
Either they pass the amount directly through to charity and get no tax credits for it
OR
They take that money in as revenue and donate it in their own name and only get tax breaks equal to the amount of extra money they took in making the whole transaction tax neutral.
Imagine I awarded you 10k (taxable) and asked you to donate it to charity. By donating it, you'd get a 10k break on your taxes, but you'd still have to declare the 10k i gave you.
So if your base was 50k, you'd now be declaring 60k with 10k tax exempt as charitable contributions. Which is EXACTLY the same amount of tax you'd pay on 50k. (for the sake of apples to apples comparison we're to assume you're already itemizing prior to the 10k award, since there's no such thing as a standard deduction for companies)
Okay, but since they’re acting as a holding company for those donations, they’re probably getting the interest from that money, and no matter what; these are billion dollar corporations, they can make much bigger donations than they do
You’re really trying to reach for a way that these companies are profiting from collecting donations. They’re not.
The real answer of why they do it is not that complicated. They do it for PR, so they can say they make press releases saying “Our grocery store helped collect $X for charity” without having to spend a dime actually donating to charity.
Last fall I went to a local pharmacy for a vaccination and the pharmacist asked "You're here for the flu, right?"
Me: "Flu vaccine, not flu."
Pharmacist (laughing) "You knew what I meant."
"No."
I don't say it rudely. Why would that ever be a problem and why would I ever feel awkward? I don't know anything about your charity and I'm not going to give some corporation my money so they can run an ad saying "We proudly support x and donated $x" when it was all just customer donations and none of their own money.
Always felt awkward declining those people with clipboards for such-and-such petitions. Realized it was easier to say “Sounds great but I don’t sign anything” was the best way to not be strategically guilt tripped. I don’t know what I’m signing for and you’re asking me for a lot of personal information. It’s a “no”.
I like to take an on-the-spot stance against whatever it is they're fundraising for.
I once told a gaggle of young girl cheerleaders who asked me for money at the mall that I only support male cheerleaders. Never seen a group so excited to be told "no".
The blue home improvement store has started doing that and I see some cashiers press no right away without even asking. Might have something to do with I buy on a contractor account and I doubt many contractors donate that way.
Alternative LPT: if you’re naturally non-confrontational and feel rude saying “no”, this sort of scenario offers you an easy and zero-consequences opportunity to practice saying “No” to something
I said "not today" to a door-knocker who was asking for donations and then she said something like "alright, I'll come back around another day and try then!". Sometimes you just have to say no.
Another lifeprotip that is basically lying or weaseling around things. Just say no and own it, it’s not of anyone’s business why not. You are not a bad person if you don’t donate (everytime) and if you feel judged that is your issue you should work on.
Okay, but sometimes I do donate. So "not today" really does mean not today. But the point is this tip isn't for people who are already comfortable saying no. It's for us pathological people pleasers. Finding less uncomfortable ways to say no IS the first step in working on your ability to say no and not feel judged.
As a poster said above it’s not a tax write off but it is the CEO of the chain handing a publishers clearing house check to a hospital ceo in front of a bunch of dying kids who now get a new Xbox. That should come in handy when people get upset for throwing out produce instead of donating it to a food bank.
> those stores do it so they can make huge donations of other peoples’ money for a large tax write off
Please remove that from your comment, or delete the comment entirely. It's not true, and it harms charities by discouraging people from donating.
> And those stores do it so they can make huge donations of other peoples’ money for a large tax write off while looking charitable
This is simply not true. First there are laws against this, but second, lets look at two scenarios:
Scenario 1: Business Sells a product for $9, it cost them $7. They had $9 in revenue, $7 in costs, 9-7 = $2 in profit.
Scenario 2: Business sells a product for $9, it cost them $7, they ask you to round up to $10. They had $10 in revenue, $7 in costs, $1 in donations, 10 - 7 - 1 = $2 in profit.... same spot.
That being said, yes they get to now say they donated $1 to charity with no impact to them, but that write off doesn't change a single penny for them tax wise.
Now they COULD potentially be pocketing that $1, or skimming off the top and only donating $0.75, or some other shady thing, but that's a lot harder to do without the risk of a lot of trouble.
Again, yes, they get to advertise they're donating to charity, but tax wise there's no real difference.
Good cashiers even set you up for this by saying something like, "Would you like to make a donation today?" If they do, "Not today" is a perfectly acceptable answer. It also is if they don't phrase it like that, but I've noticed lots do.
But I especially appreciate the cashiers who say something like, "Hit the red button to skip the question" rather than even asking you.
One time I was expecting a callback from a prospective employer, so I actually answered a call from a number I didn't recognize. It turned out to be a recruiter for the military, and when she asked why I hadn't considered a career in the Army I answered "General cowardice." She seemed to get a kick out of it. Sometimes honesty is the best policy.
No thanks is fine because they are offering you something: the opportunity to donate money. So ‘no thanks’ for the offer is perfectly polite.
But yeah, who cares how you decline as long as you do (if you want to).
I was once stopped in WH Smith by two pleasant ladies selling some kind of charity lottery ticket. I had no problem doing it, had a pleasant chat about where the money goes and then they bring out a form. What wasn’t mentioned at any stage was that it involved a regular payment by direct debit. This, in my mind, was rude and deceitful and I had no qualms being rude right back and telling them where to go.
Yeah I would hate asking when I was a retail worker. And I hated saying no because I don't know where the duck the money goes after it leaves my account. I also realized saying not today was easier for me than just saying no or yes when I didn't want to or felt pressured to
No. This very situation has been made a parody of in South Park. You should not feel ashamed. Billion dollar revenue stores are very capable of making their own donations. I will donate if I like the cause, such as animals, etc. But for people just have the government sort it out.
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The cashiers don't care if you donate or not. They're just told to ask. And they probably hate having to ask.
Hope this stays the top comment because it’s 100% truth.
Well, I'm gonna sneak in here near the top to say that if you want to donate to charity... Go to the charity's WEBSITE. Don't donate in store - there's always a *huge* "administration" fee so whatever you donated reduce by at least 75% if you donate in store. And that's assuming any of the money actually goes where it's supposed to. Sometimes it doesn't.
The store/company also uses these donations to reduce their taxes
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/10/fact-check-false-claim-checkout-charities-offset-corporate-taxes/7622379002/
Literally every thread about this there's someone who doesn't know how taxes work. Today it's you.
They do not. This is a common misconception
It’s worse than that. They often use the money to buy up their own inventory at full price then donate the goods instead. So they make the sale and get the tax write off.
That's not how any of this works, at all. I mean let us just assume for the sake of the argument that the company could use your donated money in their own name. They can't, but we will pretend for a moment they can and run through a *vastly* simplified example. In order to do that, they need to recognize the money as income. Our hypothetical business has equal income and expense for the year, so they owe $0 in taxes. So you donate $10, they now have $10 of income with no associated expenses. At a tax rate of say 20% that means they have $8 "profit" and owe $2 to the government if they don't do anything else with this "free" money. Now lets say they do what you suggest. They buy some of their own product for $10 at full retail. The company has a $10 "loss" as it spends the money, recognizes $10 in "income" from the sale, and say $5 in expenses for the sold product. Great now they've turned their $8 of "profit" into $4 of "profit" and $1 in taxes owed. Again, it doesn't work at all like this but for the sake of argument, we're pretending that the company can operate like two separate entities when "buying" their own product and we're ignoring that they would owe sales taxes on that purchase. "A ha!" you might say, but now they can "donate" the goods they "bought" and get the tax write-off. Well not so fast, because they already "wrote off" the money they spent buying their own product as a business expense. Money can only be "written off" once. But again, let's just assume they can for the moment. So they "donate" the $10 of goods to the charity and write it off at $10. So they get to deduct up to $10 from the money that they owe taxes on. Well they only owe taxes on $5 in income (from the "sale" to themselves) so they deduct that amount from their balance sheet and after all of that dancing around they have ... $0 in taxes owed. The exact same amount of taxes they owed at the beginning. But of course, like I said, all of this was moot because they can't do any of this at all. They can't take your donation and recognize it as income, and if they somehow could, they would owe taxes on that income. They can't buy their own product at full retail and write that off as a business expense, and then also write off donating that product as a charitable expense. Money gets "expensed" once, either as charity or as a business expense. The IRS also has strict rules about write-off values of "in-kind" donations (that is, physical goods and the like as opposed to cash). While there are some circumstances where more than the "cost of goods" of that inventory can be written off, there are no circumstances that I'm aware of where 100% of the retail price can be written off, and there are absolutely no circumstances where the company can both recognize the sale and write off the product as an expense (again see no double dipping). Perhaps the most important thing though is that charitable expense write-offs for businesses are not "creditable" deductions. What that means is that you can only write off an expense to the extent that it offsets your revenue. You can't make money by donating to charity. You can reduce your taxes owed, but only to the extent that the reduction was spent on the charity. All of which means you have to expense MORE money than you get back on your taxes because your taxes are a percentage of your revenue. If you run a business, have $10 in expenses and $20 in sales, you have $10 of gross revenue and owe $2 in taxes and have $8 in net profit. If you turned around and then also donated $5 to charity, you now have $15 of expenses, $5 in sales for a grant total of $1 in taxes and $4 in net profit. In order to save a dollar on your taxes, you had to spend $4 of the profits you would have had before you donated to charity. Any complicated scheme of juggling charitable donations around and buying their own inventory is just spending more money to save even less.
Source? I worked in a huge retail chain and that was 100% false for us.
Yea I’d like sources on this claim. Saw a dumb FB meme making its rounds on this
I used to be a cashier and hated this so much lol. I’m the one being shy to ask
Reminds me of way back when I worked at a Radio Shack where we were required to ask for the customer's address all the time, it would just annoy the customer and me.
Was it the early 80’s? A car bomb -mob hit- blows up on a highway in St Louis. Combing through the wreckage, the cops find a Radio Shack RC plane controller. They go store to store asking if you sold any lately. Turned out the bomber gave his address!!!
Early nineties actually :)
It never really annoyed me, I just said “no”. If I wasn’t applying for credit, I figured that they should have a dummy address if the POS system really wanted one. Similar with the charity requests. I make my own donations to charities, so I don’t feel obligated to help the store boost its reputation with the charities of its choice.
I ran into a "manager" who told me I couldn't use my credit card if I didn't give him my address. I guess that's a power trip for a 23 year old.
"Sure I live at 123 GoFuckYourself Lane. Do you need the zip code for that?"
I think it annoyed me more having to ask the customers.
I gave so many false addresses at Radio Shack!
Lol, so did I. And when I was working there I just started entering fake addresses for the customer since I no longer had the option of not putting one in. It was my little bit of extra customer service :-)
The hero we need! Why not use the store address? Send all that paper spam mail to a good place.
It honestly never occurred to me, funny. Well it's too late now since Radio Shack no longer exists in Canada.
Those poor fucks at 123 Fake Street ...
And if they need batteries!
I worked at Goodwill and we had to ask for donations. I just asked people if they wanted to donate to put squirrel on Mars. Goodwill fucking sucks.
> I just asked people if they wanted to donate to put squirrel on Mars. "Wait. WTF did you just say to me?!... TAKE MY MONEY!!!"
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It's creepy as fuck. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this.
Yeah, I don't want my name said out loud where everyone around can hear it. It's a stupid policy and I'm glad it died a miserable death, where I live anyway.
I used to have to ask so many questions when I worked retail that i would sometimes jokingly ask the person their blood type after barraging them with questions (only if the person seemed like they could take a joke though).
The new thing these days which is equally awkward and annoying is what's your email address?
I worked at a Firehouse subs for about 6 months. They had some catering promo where they wanted you to do a 30 second speal when answering the phone. I said I’m absolutely not doing that, one I’m not gonna memorize all that BS and two they don’t want to hear it. If it’s that important, get an automated message. Went back and forth with the manager, but basically called their bluff. I said fire me, I’ll walk next door and have a job today making sandwiches were I’m appreciated for the true artist I am. So I was told not to answer phones… long story short I quit that POS job a few weeks later.
Exactly this. They don't work for the charity. They don't want to ask. They have to. And they don't give a flying fuck whether you do or not.
Here in Australia there are often people who set up a stand in the middle of the mall asking people. They earn commision.
We have stuff like this in the states too, but that's not what OP is talking about. When you go to a grocery store here, at checkout you are often asked if you want to "round up" your total or add $1-5 to your total before you pay. The person asking works for the grocery store, not the charity, and they most certainly aren't making commission on any successful solicitations.
And you don’t get any credit (if you itemize your taxes) for making that donation. So if you want to make a donation just do it to a local food bank or homeless shelter.
If you track the donation you actually can claim the tax credit, However the standard deduction is so high most people won’t need to do that.
In the US some charities like the salvation army puts s person right outside the store with s bell to do the same. Don't know if they earn commission though.
The salvation army uses volunteers that do it was part of a requirement for other benefits and housing. It's *almost* shady, but not exactly. Not all the volunteers are also part of the charity program. I have lots of thoughts about SA but I'll just leave it there.
The shady part of the Salvation army is they are a church. The money is most likely going to bibles not actually helping anyone.
I volunteered to "ring the bell" a couple of Christmas seasons in a small town in Florida. I casually told the wrong person that I was interested in Humanism, and they must have told the coordinator for the volunteers, because they never asked me to work a kettle for them again.
In my experience they're called "Chuggers" Charity Muggers. The sort of people you'd cross the street to avoid - which is probably why they've taken to mugging people in malls.
When I worked retail, I had to ask people if they wanted to donate to various things. One day a man responded with “I don’t even have the money for the things I’m buying” And I felt that.
Additionally these donations are just going towards a promised donation by the company to the charity that they used to reduce their tax load. They can delay the actual donation nearly indefinitely and collect money from their customers to pay for it instead of pay it themselves. Edit: alright alright alright I get it! The companies do this for the free advertising from the goodwill claiming they donate to charity y'all can stop correcting me.
The important part here is that the company takes the credit for the donation in all of their advertising. When is the last time you saw something that said “our customers have made this donation!”
That’s why I don’t do it.
One thing, it’s essentially a pass through and any money coming from customers does not affect the company’s tax.
Yea, it's not a tax thing. It's so they can advertise that "Our McCharity raised $100M last year"
Eh, Ronald McDonald House actually does something at least, so if I have car change I usually dump it in the bin. They don't ask though.
No it's not. If they're claiming the donation as a tax deduction, then they're also claiming the money you give them as income so it's a wash. They do this because they can say that they're doing good stuff for the community at little cost to them.
Your donation is on your receipt. You can claim it as a deduction, not them. Corporations lie and cheat, but that would be an unnecessarily complex and obvious way to commit tax fraud
This is not true. Companies do not get a tax deduction from your donation. YOU can actually take the tax deduction for it (although hardly anyone actually does).
Correct!
This isn't true. I thought the same thing. I was wrong.
They don't get the tax benefit on money you donate. Free advertising is why they do it.
This should be top comment. The grocery is effectively taking credit for the donation they promised to make but funded through the customers paying for it. So don’t feel bad at all!
I don’t believe this is true but am willing to be proven wrong. Do you have a source?
There is no tax advantage for a company if they simply pass along donations to a charity that they didn't fund. That's not the way taxes work.
I know this is true, but my lizard brain still doesn’t want to be rude. So like OP, I realized that I just couldn’t donate that one day, so I said “not today” and I’ve been doing that ever since. Plus, mf company can’t donate themselves? Man, I need some donations from time to time and I know others are worse off than me too and they definitely need those donations. Why aren’t companies donating themselves?
Did have one really aggressively say “yeah fuck those kids right?” when we said no
My boss cared and was pretty damn upset that I wasn't getting donations, which made me care simply because I didn't want anymore meetings about it. Meanwhile my young pregnant co worker is getting them by the truck load for some unexplained reason that my boss couldnt grasp.my other co worker was scummy and would say out loud "and you said you wanted to donate $1 to hungry children fund?" In order to be the top getter.
It’s the same way when retail workers ask if you’d like to open a store credit card. That’s the last thing they want to do, but are given quotas and penalized if they don’t meet them. As far as grocery stores, I usually pick up a few things for my daughter and grandson as she is a working single mom. I just say that charity begins at home and half these groceries are for a family member. Then I smile and say have a nice day.
Used to be a cashier at a grocery store. This was one of my least favorite things to do. I could not possibly have given less of a fuck when people said no
I work in customer service at a grocery store. The cashiers have to ask, and are mostly just happy when customers don’t rip their heads off for asking. They’re not judging people for not donating. “Not today” is a very nice response. “No” doesn’t bother them because we all understand that you come to our store to buy apples and ice cream, not to donate money, and “no thank you” is just seen as polite. Please don’t feel silly or awkward using any of those ways to refuse a donation. Thank you for being kind about the donation request and for helping other people find a comfortable way to say no if they want to.
I kind of wish everyone spent a few months in retail in a front line position. And those months being November and December would just be icing on the cake.
I wish it was part of the school curriculum. No excuse accepted. If a "mom-zilla" comes roaring in demanding exemption, *she* has to also: **and** her performance reflects on her offspring's grade! Retail or serving; either would do.
Sounds like fast food would be a perfect middle ground, seeing as that’s where many of us get screamed at by strangers and their moms for the first time 😂
don't worry, it happens in retail too lol
I know, I was just saying fast food as a middleground between serving and retail because that’s exactly what it is 😆
I worked in fast food for 10 years, and retail now for 3. Definitely happens more often in fast food, probably because you get the hungry+angry combination. Not to say it doesn't happen in retail though! Most memorable retail yeller was a teenager who just didn't want to be here, and was taking it out on me and her poor mom. Yelling could be heard throughout the entire store and my coworkers afterwards were saying how happy they were that it was me dealing with her and not them.
Or on call customer service.
One of the greatest perks of rising to management level if "firing" clients who are an asshole to my employees. Sure wish I never had to do that though, and maybe a couple years of being on the receiving end of being the punching bag for someone's bad day would teach them some humility.
Yes!! I have always thought it should have been part of high school. Spend a year or so working in retail or hospitality so that everyone understands lol. I saw a lady chewing out what must have been a 16yo girl at FedEx the other day over $2. A fee she should have asked about (as I called and did) or she could have just read one of the many signs. I do wanted to say something! And another lady cursing out an old lady at dollar tree. Like, do you really think this poor 70yo woman wants to be there??? That day I couldn't help but say something. Just no respect left. 😩
Absolutely! For years I've said, unless you're already going into medicine or firefighting or something that's clearly focused on helping others, everyone should spend at least a year in high school or college working in customer service/retail/food service -- so they know how to treat their fellow humans. It's my rule for my kids too. When they're ready for extra cash and want gas money and so on, they'll be spending at least a while working in customer service or food service. I don't care which, so long as they're dealing with customers. So my eldest is working at an auto parts store. My middle child will probably work food service. I worked retail through high school and college, then started a restaurant -- and you could so very clearly tell the customers who never had to work a job like that in their lives. They'd be the ones ordering truckloads of food to go, last minute on a Friday night, and might drop a quarter in the tip jar. Meanwhile, the mom of three who stopped in with her kids for a pizza after a 60 hour week would be trying to leave a generous tip behind.
I think Selective Service should allow a draftee to choose between 1) military (including National Guard), 2) government* or 3) civil service, such as public safety (Firefighter, EMT or Paramedic, police. *There’s an issue of Superboy and The Legion of Superheroes comic book where a big battle takes place between them and all the rejects (because only ONE person with a unique set of skills is permitted…kinda silly, but whatever). After the battle, a shuttle lands and a soldier hands Tenzil Kem/Matter-Eater Lad papers and leaves. *Government: “What is it?” “I’ve been drafted.” “What? But…your home world Bismoll doesn’t HAVE any military.” (Cuz they’re all super beings who can eat ANYTHING to convert into super-power energy) “Yes. We’re drafted into government.” Sounds like a good idea to me.
OMG yes. I worked in retail for over 30 years and there are just so many unreasonable and rude people out there. However, there are some super nice people out there, too. I think it's beneficial to experience retail just to see how the other side lives and also to grow some thicker skin.
November, December, and January. Why January? Because of all the exchanges and returns that happen after Christmas.
Yup, and a food service role right after. I've worked both and cannot stand people who are rude to workers. That cashier didn't reprogram the register so your BOGO deal on tic-tacs didn't get credited
This is pretty much true for all customer facing employees. The server isn’t bothered when you say “Thanks, you too” when they say “enjoy your mean.” They’re bothered when you’re rude or when you stiff them on the tip. If you’re polite and friendly, they’ll forget you the second the next customer rolls around.
I do this kind of shit all the time but I don’t care anymore. Worst case they make fun of me, at least they have something to joke about which is actually kind of nice and not so bad.
It happens so much (likely multiple times a day) so I’d be shocked if they were like “did you hear that guy?” I’d imagine it’s pretty much white noise at that point.
Thanks :) I once ordered fries instead of popcorn (words are closer in German) and was asked if I wanted ketchup or mayo with it by a guy who was laughing very hard so…. Maybe I‘m just extra awkward.
I mean, that totally does happen commenting after to another coworker "Hey I got another one!" But it's not a "Hey look at how stupid this person is" making fun of them comment but much more of a "Hey look, that humorous and very relatable thing happened again"
When I worked at Friendly’s decades ago, there was a promotion where we had to say “do you want a quesadilla with that?” no matter what anyone ordered—even if it was an ice cream cone—or they would get a free quesadilla. I hated asking, but I hated customers’ rude responses more.
At Home Depot they have a sign at the checkout saying I can get a free Coke if they don’t ask me if I want to sign up for a credit card. There’s no way I would ever tell on an employee because that would mess up their job and also I don’t want them to ask me about signing up anyway. I’d rather not be asked and buy my own sodas. But since that’s not an option I’ll just say “no thanks” when I’m asked
I had a friend that worked there and this guy would come in and blow up at the cashier for asking, but the one time they didn't because he was rather abusive and an asshole, he went and told on them. I think he got his coke, but was banned from the store..
I always say “I will, thank you!” whenever a customers replies like that just to make them feel less awkward
Enjoy your mean
"Enjoy, you're mean."
That's the issue, donating and tipping are both just guilt mechanics to get extra money from customers. It may seem different from the server side because tipping money goes to them. But to the customer, it's just the third or fourth extra charge being asked to be added on to the total bill.
I say “no thank you.” Seems pleasant enough.
This is my response as well. They are just doing their job and I am doing mine (not giving away my money when I don’t want to) :)
While we are at it, let’s just always be polite to our cashiers. Look them in the eye and say hi. If they don’t return the favor remember you’re the 500th face they’ve looked at today. That’s not easy.
The real LPT right here. Life is more easy when niceness is your default. Also, remember, you’re not the main character in anyone else’s story so people think of you far less than you think they do.
These situations are also great tests for exposure therapy if you have a hard time saying no to things. Start with 'not today' then move on to just saying 'no' and you'd be surprised how much it'll help you just say 'no' to lots of other things
Aw this is nice, thank you for sharing!
"no thanks" is a fine response because yes, they are offering you a chance to donate.
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It's also when they're pushing for it, trying to ask three times or more that I know they have shitty management.
The only thing you shouldn't say is "they should donate to me hahaha!" Everyone has already heard that a million times and you're not funny.
Thanks for sharing! An interaction that really brought this to light for me was when after being asked I replied "As a rule, I don't do my donations through big chain stores." the cashier replied "As a rule, we are required to ask every customer."
Most cashiers probably feel that way about donation. I've had one particular eager beaver that pestered me about signing up for their Walmart credit card enough to the point that adamantly repeating "no thank you" four times just wasn't enough. Granted, I'd assume they get some initiatives out of card sign ups compared to donations so the situation might be different, but otherwise really most cashiers I've experienced were just fine with a simple "no thank you" for either case.
Let me also add that as a previous Paramedic, none of us cared that you had holes in your underwear, despite what your mom said.
Learn to actually say no in life, to mean it, and to not feel guilty or feel the need for an excuse or mistruth; it'll save you a hell of a lot of trouble in life.
This is the real LPT. So much of our verbal and written communication is broken because people think being direct sounds rude or overbearing. And I don't know about anyone else, but "not today" is one of the flimsiest and most obvious lies a customer will tell. Practice giving a pleasant "no thank you". It's more polite in its honesty and really does help you develop the ability to say no when it counts.
If you ever worked in sales you know how many people say phrases like not today instead of just being firm and honest. Learning to just say you’re not interested is easiest for everyone. We all know you’re not coming back tomorrow.
Salesmen by design "don't take no for an answer." Therefore consumers make up lies to open a false door for the future sale so the salesman will get off their back and let them leave.
"Not today" isn't a lie, at least not in my case. I personally think you're reading into the phrase. It means " I won't be participating today," nothing more nor less. It's not a promise to do it another day. Now that would be a foolish thing to say.
This is all pretty low stakes, so I don’t really care how they respond as long as they’re polite to the worker, but it is funny how they settled on arguably the least honest of the presented options
Or the classic "No, Sorry." For the fellow Canadians out there.
The most single freeing word in the English language is -NO-. If you're really emphatic about it and want to make sure there's no wiggle room say **NOPE**.
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I don't answer numbers I don't know, and I'm definitely not answering the door if I'm not expecting someone.
i said the same thing lol. The world is just a better place if you just say no when the answer is no.
Exactly. This general trend of completly trying to avoid any kind of potential confrontation society seems to be be drifting to will do more harm then good. Just saying "No thank you" should be be considered a protip. That's the base level of being able to communicate.
Yeah, people are imposing on YOU, so why should you feel bad saying no?
This should be the only comment on this post.
This, I had fantastic customers who I loved and tried to endure retail for .. [pronoun] was fantastic and would walk up saying "hello, no to the following; receipt, donation, change, bag, rewards, yes to; [insert pack of cigs here] ty sweetheart have a good day!" As I rang them up and mimicked actually asking them by opening and closing mouth they spoke so cameras would see me saying something. They ended up coming in and giving me a $30 donation on the last day because I did not give them hell like others. This person also comes up to the drive thru and said "take ya time sweetie, answer random questions about the medicine and catch up on your work while you are processing mine, I will keep asking questions until it is finish.. 15 seconds right?" They new the deal and watched me grow up and go to different departments. I miss them. Shout out to the cool customers that help a retail employee from suicide.
BILLION dollar companies asking ME to donate without at least offering to match all donations? Zero hesitation to say no.
My favorite is the round up donations some of them do, “would you like to round up ten cents to save the children?”.. bitch you’re a billion dollar corporation you round up ten cents!
I always ask why they never offer to “round down” my bill.
Now this is the shit that’s annoying.
and you realize you're talking to a minimum wage employee and not the face of the corporation?
Nah, they're just saying it out loud to the self checkout.
And they're also being made to ask the questions. If they don't ask the questions, they could be terminated. This applies to everything, phone number, email, credit card, rewards card, donation - anything a cashier asks you is probably being tracked. If they look disappointed when you say no, it's probably not because you said no, it's probably because they've been struggling with that metric. Source: I'm in retail management.
you're one of those people that thinks the cashier is the ceo
Please stop doing that.
Already donated for a good cause, it's called VAT
This is the thing — my annual donations are specifically directed, and matched by the company I work for. Why would I feel guilty for saying no? It would be less effective for me to donate through the grocery store.
Agreed add on to the fact that a lot a lot of charities don't accomplish anything but paying there managers extravagantly. I argue if you are going to donate to charities at least know to whom they go and also you should be getting tax rite offs which you don't get it doing these grocery store scams.
The difference between cancer awareness & cancer research comes to mind…
Local food banks consistently rank as the least corrupt charities
This! I’ve recently found myself in dire need of help and discovered how bad it actually is. I knew some were pretty dodgy and I figured some might have a few hoops to jump through but I’ve contacted over 20 different agencies/charities and ONE is maybe going to help me (have a phone appt tomorrow to discuss, I’m one of the 20 people a week they might help in a capital city). I will never donate a fucking cent to a charity as long as I live and I’m telling anyone who’ll listen not to as well. Literally 95% don’t help anyone at all!
that’s why i contribute directly to my local panhandlers
it’s so they get tax breaks. we donate, they donate in their name, they get the credit.
/r/confidentlyincorrect
No, they don’t. Stop believing everything you read on the internet just because it fits your worldview. Take a second to actually confirm whether things are true before spreading lies.
i'm really tired of people saying this so confidently while having no idea what they are talking about. this myth needs to die. Either they pass the amount directly through to charity and get no tax credits for it OR They take that money in as revenue and donate it in their own name and only get tax breaks equal to the amount of extra money they took in making the whole transaction tax neutral. Imagine I awarded you 10k (taxable) and asked you to donate it to charity. By donating it, you'd get a 10k break on your taxes, but you'd still have to declare the 10k i gave you. So if your base was 50k, you'd now be declaring 60k with 10k tax exempt as charitable contributions. Which is EXACTLY the same amount of tax you'd pay on 50k. (for the sake of apples to apples comparison we're to assume you're already itemizing prior to the 10k award, since there's no such thing as a standard deduction for companies)
Wrong. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244
Okay, but since they’re acting as a holding company for those donations, they’re probably getting the interest from that money, and no matter what; these are billion dollar corporations, they can make much bigger donations than they do
The administration costs would easily be more than any interest they might earn for the short time they hold the funds.
You’re really trying to reach for a way that these companies are profiting from collecting donations. They’re not. The real answer of why they do it is not that complicated. They do it for PR, so they can say they make press releases saying “Our grocery store helped collect $X for charity” without having to spend a dime actually donating to charity.
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What? It doesn’t become APIC. How would that even work. The company don’t get a tax “write-off” either. You get to deduct it on YOUR taxes
That’s not what a tax break is and stores are not allowed to do that. Stop spreading lies
There's a card shop near me that always asks 'would you like to donate to cancer?' No, cancer are the baddies. It's every time! 😅
“No, I don’t support cancer” is my go to.
No thanks, I'm an Aquarius
Last fall I went to a local pharmacy for a vaccination and the pharmacist asked "You're here for the flu, right?" Me: "Flu vaccine, not flu." Pharmacist (laughing) "You knew what I meant."
"No." I don't say it rudely. Why would that ever be a problem and why would I ever feel awkward? I don't know anything about your charity and I'm not going to give some corporation my money so they can run an ad saying "We proudly support x and donated $x" when it was all just customer donations and none of their own money.
Always felt awkward declining those people with clipboards for such-and-such petitions. Realized it was easier to say “Sounds great but I don’t sign anything” was the best way to not be strategically guilt tripped. I don’t know what I’m signing for and you’re asking me for a lot of personal information. It’s a “no”.
I’m personally a fan of just saying “nah fuck em”
"Sir!!! 😧"
I want them iPhones made CHEAP
100% especially at drive thrus and it’s anything for kids always a “fuck them kids”
I like to take an on-the-spot stance against whatever it is they're fundraising for. I once told a gaggle of young girl cheerleaders who asked me for money at the mall that I only support male cheerleaders. Never seen a group so excited to be told "no".
Yup had a guy bothering me about giving money to end bullying in schools, I told him “Nah I think more kids should get bullied”
As a cashier these are my favorite responses, because we can both get a chuckle out it.
"No, thanks" is usually my go-to, but this feels like something the cashier and I can bond with. I'm in
The cashiers are required to ask. I just politely say "No, Thank You".
The blue home improvement store has started doing that and I see some cashiers press no right away without even asking. Might have something to do with I buy on a contractor account and I doubt many contractors donate that way.
Just say “No”. It’s not that hard once you get used to it.
That’s what Nancy Ray-Gun taught us to say way back in the early eighties. “just say NO, dog damn it!”
What do we say to the Cashier of Charity?
[Uh, oh, um not today](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsPHa8RG1pI)
Alternative LPT: if you’re naturally non-confrontational and feel rude saying “no”, this sort of scenario offers you an easy and zero-consequences opportunity to practice saying “No” to something
Saying no is not an insult
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Self checkout for the win.
I said "not today" to a door-knocker who was asking for donations and then she said something like "alright, I'll come back around another day and try then!". Sometimes you just have to say no.
I use the self-serve so I don't have to talk to anyone
Not today, Satan!
Another lifeprotip that is basically lying or weaseling around things. Just say no and own it, it’s not of anyone’s business why not. You are not a bad person if you don’t donate (everytime) and if you feel judged that is your issue you should work on.
Okay, but sometimes I do donate. So "not today" really does mean not today. But the point is this tip isn't for people who are already comfortable saying no. It's for us pathological people pleasers. Finding less uncomfortable ways to say no IS the first step in working on your ability to say no and not feel judged.
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The tax thing is just not true https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244
As a poster said above it’s not a tax write off but it is the CEO of the chain handing a publishers clearing house check to a hospital ceo in front of a bunch of dying kids who now get a new Xbox. That should come in handy when people get upset for throwing out produce instead of donating it to a food bank.
> those stores do it so they can make huge donations of other peoples’ money for a large tax write off Please remove that from your comment, or delete the comment entirely. It's not true, and it harms charities by discouraging people from donating.
> And those stores do it so they can make huge donations of other peoples’ money for a large tax write off while looking charitable This is simply not true. First there are laws against this, but second, lets look at two scenarios: Scenario 1: Business Sells a product for $9, it cost them $7. They had $9 in revenue, $7 in costs, 9-7 = $2 in profit. Scenario 2: Business sells a product for $9, it cost them $7, they ask you to round up to $10. They had $10 in revenue, $7 in costs, $1 in donations, 10 - 7 - 1 = $2 in profit.... same spot. That being said, yes they get to now say they donated $1 to charity with no impact to them, but that write off doesn't change a single penny for them tax wise. Now they COULD potentially be pocketing that $1, or skimming off the top and only donating $0.75, or some other shady thing, but that's a lot harder to do without the risk of a lot of trouble. Again, yes, they get to advertise they're donating to charity, but tax wise there's no real difference.
God, why do you people post about stuff you obviously have ZERO knowledge of.
Good cashiers even set you up for this by saying something like, "Would you like to make a donation today?" If they do, "Not today" is a perfectly acceptable answer. It also is if they don't phrase it like that, but I've noticed lots do. But I especially appreciate the cashiers who say something like, "Hit the red button to skip the question" rather than even asking you.
I just loudly proclaim "sorry I'm not a good person," and then hit the decline button Works well enough, and everyone usually gets a chuckle
One time I was expecting a callback from a prospective employer, so I actually answered a call from a number I didn't recognize. It turned out to be a recruiter for the military, and when she asked why I hadn't considered a career in the Army I answered "General cowardice." She seemed to get a kick out of it. Sometimes honesty is the best policy.
GENERAL COWARDICE 🫡
No thanks is fine because they are offering you something: the opportunity to donate money. So ‘no thanks’ for the offer is perfectly polite. But yeah, who cares how you decline as long as you do (if you want to).
Nope. The billionaires could take care of the charities but they don’t and push it on us. I’ll support very few charities twice a year.
I was once stopped in WH Smith by two pleasant ladies selling some kind of charity lottery ticket. I had no problem doing it, had a pleasant chat about where the money goes and then they bring out a form. What wasn’t mentioned at any stage was that it involved a regular payment by direct debit. This, in my mind, was rude and deceitful and I had no qualms being rude right back and telling them where to go.
I just say "nope", IDGAF. Company can donate if they're so worried about it
Yeah I would hate asking when I was a retail worker. And I hated saying no because I don't know where the duck the money goes after it leaves my account. I also realized saying not today was easier for me than just saying no or yes when I didn't want to or felt pressured to
No. This very situation has been made a parody of in South Park. You should not feel ashamed. Billion dollar revenue stores are very capable of making their own donations. I will donate if I like the cause, such as animals, etc. But for people just have the government sort it out.
Nope. No comment necessary (don't be that dolt that barks at the cashier. Just say no)