And for every dollar donated at checkout, the store owner gets 17% as a tax credit on their personal Income Tax return, as if that money had come out of their own pocket. I consider that to be an organized scam.
I thought that too. But I was wrong. Nobody gets any tax credit. Not the customer nor the store. That's why only donate
directly to the particular charity I am supporting at the time. I get the tax receipt and the credit. And by donating directly, rather than through some organized event, there are no expenses related to the fundraising overhead.
Why nobody gets a tax benefit when you donate at the checkout
Customers who donate at cash registers don’t get a tax receipt, but neither do retailers
".....The practice is called point-of-sale fundraising, as the charitable donations are funnelled through retailers at the final point customers make their purchases.
All that extra change brings in big money for charities, but it does not give individual Canadians the same tax benefits as donating directly to charity without a cash register in between.
Nobody gets a tax receipt. Really!
In 2021, grocery chains
Metro and
Calgary Co-op collectively brought in more than $5.5 million for food banks, emergency shelters, cancer research and hospitals in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta.
So who gets to write all those donations off their income? Customers or retailers?
The correct answer, according to accounting and charity experts, is neither. When it comes to checkout philanthropy, in Canada, no one gets a tax benefit.
"The individual [customer] would need to donate directly to the charity to obtain a receipt," wrote Toronto-based chartered accountant Brian J. Quinlan in an email to CBC Radio's
The Cost of Living.
"It would not be ethical for the grocery store to request a charitable receipt as it is not donating its own money."
There are other incentives for stores
In the absence of tax receipts, many Canadian retailers who ask for donations at the checkout have
self-stated mandates to be good corporate citizens or community players.
However, Rotstein points out another reason stores team up with charities is for good marketing.
Retailers can leverage a charity's positive brand to promote their own outlet, which delivers good brand equity at a lower cost to the store than more traditional marketing. As well, customers are already at the checkout ready to spend money, so fundraising expenses are also lower....."
...
read the whole story here on CBC
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/checkout-donations-nobody-gets-tax-benefit-1.6524462
maybe those anti-vaxxers were right and Bill Gates planted a chip in my brain?
