this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Over here in the UK we don't tip as a rule, unless we've been directly served by someone, and even then it's mostly just to leave whatever change there may be.
But it's become very fucking common for chain shops to ask if we want to round up to the nearest £ and donate that money to whichever charity they're working with.
And my answer is always, always, no.
Why not if it is a charity? I'm guessing you're not trusting them?
Because it just doesn't feel right to me. And I know that it's kinda churlish, but there's a part of me that doesn't want huge supermarket chains who keep posting record profits while paying the bare minimum they legally have to, to take the credit for me donating a few quid a month in rounding up my bill. Many of the charities wouldn't be needed as much if these companies actually paid adequate wages.
I might be wrong but don't they use these charities to get tax reductions?
I don't think they do, but I've seen them announce things like " company name teamed up with x charity and we managed $200,000 !"
Conveniently forgetting to mention that they donated little to nothing themselves.
Do what you want, but that's not how that works. Businesses aren't "using" or "taking" your donation or claiming them as their own. They're basically just serving as a collection point for whatever charity indicated. If you choose not to claim it yourself, that's your choice, but the donation is "from" you "to" the charity. The supermarket or whatever just provides visibility for the charity and the collections logistics. It saves those charities having to find people to stand outside and ring a bell and hope you have change in your pocket.
If you're not contributing to a charity in lieu of not participating in these "round up donations" programs, then you're simply choosing to not donate to charity. Which is fine, as far as that goes.
Oh aye, I know they’re not claiming tax or anything like that, and I get that it’s essentially just a digital version of having a change pot on the counter, but it still feels like Tesco getting to crow about how much their customers have helped raise, while they’re paying as little as they can legally get away with, y’know?
But ultimately it’s not really rational response, and I know that.
I get you. I basically swing back and forth between how you feel, "hell with this corporate public image campaign" and going "well, what the hell, it's .12 for a good cause."
That way I'm being irrational in all directions.
Charity donations are tax deductible (usually) so what you're doing is giving the business a means to bring down their contributions for the year. It'd really be best if you just donated directly.
No. That's not how that works.
Deductible means they don't pay taxes on the money they donated
It does nothing to reduce the tax burden on their profits, if the money they're donating wouldn't have been profit in the first place