Yeah, my question was more rhetorical. There is no tax break really, they don’t pay tax on the donation because it’s not income

However, a not stupid thing for people to get upset about is what CVS did a couple years ago. Basically, they pledged to donate $10M to a charity, then collected donations from customers, and put those donations towards that pre-existing pledge.

To illustrate why this is shitty (in the event that someone misses the point):

CVS pledged to donate $10M. Effectively from that point, they were giving the charity $10M regardless of what else happened. At that moment, CVS was spending $10M and the charity was gaining $10M. CVS then asked for donations from customers, stating that the donations would be going towards that charity.

If they collected (for example) $1M in donations, they would cover the remaining $9M, so the charity gets their $10M, so what’s the problem?

The problem is that the customers weren’t donating to the charity; they were donating to CVS. In the end, the charity didn’t get any more money than they would have without those customers’ donations; CVS paid less, instead.

Kind of. They’re still claiming a PR thing, but that’s probably worth looking past to benefit the charity.

They’re absolutely not getting any kind of tax break from these.