Corporate charity

[Hugabear]

Am I the only one offended when I hear about corporations donating money to charity? Usually it's something along the lines of "We'll donate x amount of dollars IF you buy this product" or "we'll donate x dollars if we reach a certain goal". When I hear conditional offers like that, to me it says 'If you want us to donate to charity, YOU have to do something first. In other words, they're using charity donations as a selling point, in order for you to give them YOUR money. Even whenever there aren't any overt strings attached, it still smacks of a publicity stunt. "See how good we are, we care about people, we're donating x dollars". Usually the amount they donate is a very small, insignificant amount compared to the profits they're bringing in. It's akin to car dealerships competing to see who can fly the largest American flag.

Another thing that irks me about corporate charity giveaways is that by and large, most of them are done primarily for tax write-offs. Yes, I know that there are some companies who genuinely care about charities, I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about large corporations for whom charitable donations are simply another expense, something to deduct at the end of the year, in order to lessen their tax burden.

Eliminate the tax deduction for corporate charity giveaways - along with all the other deductions they use to get out of paying taxes. Then raise the taxes for the largest corporations. We simply cannot afford for these multi-billion dollar corporations to be getting away without paying their fair share.