Tipping spinoff: What about charities?

[TheConsciousness]

Does anyone know how much you have to donate to get a tax break?

 

[leebee]

If I have any change (and I do mean change, not paper money), I'll throw it in the bucket sometimes. When DD was little she always wanted to donate, so I made sure to have some quarters on hand so she could put one in the bucket. Other than that? Nope. I don't donate a toy at Dollar Tree or round up my change at the grocery store. We participate in food drives when the USPS is collecting on a Saturday morning, and I make a shopping trip at Thanksgiving to put food in the truck for a local radio station's food drive (or donate a turkey or whatever). I know these drives are going to our local food pantries. The rest of our charitable giving is done directly to specific organizations we support (and who give us a receipt for our tax deductions).

 

[wvjules]

Does anyone know how much you have to donate to get a tax break?

It depends on a lot of factors. And you have to have enough deductions to itemize.

 

[amcnj]

Does anyone know how much you have to donate to get a tax break?

The tax break is if you itemize deductions. Each dollar of itemized deductions lowers your reported income by that dollar, and you are saving whatever your tax rate is on that dollar.

That being said, the tax picture is changing this year. The standard deductions have increased to $12000 for singles and married filing separately, $24000 for married filing jointly, and $18000 for head of household. So fewer people will be itemizing this year, as unless your total itemized deduction figure is higher than your standard deduction, there is no benefit. Also, my understanding is that the state income tax and property tax component of any itemized deduction total is limited to $10000 this year, which might also stop some from needing to itemize.

 

[superme80]

It depends. I rarely make it to Dutch Bros when they do a drive. The lines take too long because the community comes out in a strong support. Our local Grocery Outlet is paired up with the local food bank, so sometimes I donate there. If I have a bit I do donate to Salvation Army Bell Ringers.

 

[bigbabyblues]

Op in the thread on tipping mentioned "This time of year".

Do you feel obligated to give to the bell ringers collecting for charity, i.e. Salvation Army and such? What if you go into the store frequently or the same charity is collecting at another store you frequent?

And what about when you're asked to donate at the cash register, i.e. "Would you like to donate $1 to Children's Hospital or something like that?

We also often have charitable collections at work this time of year, how do you feel about that?

There are a couple of students at the school where I work whose families are having a hard time this year. Several of us staff members went together to help provide their Christmas this year. Aside from that, we donate directly to any charity we want to support. I do not carry cash, so I don't donate to the bell ringers or the people standing outside of the stores asking for donations (sports teams, etc). I also decline to donate at the cash register, no matter what the charity is. I just say no thank you and move on. If I want to donate to Children's Hospital, I'll send them a check.

 

[neverlandsky]

I do spare change to the SA buckets. If asked to round up, I do round up for Children's Miracle Network & the local food bank. Did both of those today.

 

[disneychrista]

Nope. Don't give to the stores asking to round up or give a dollar to X charity.

There is one "charity" that is out year round but no one seems to know what they are collecting for. My kids called them the "white people" because they are always dressed in white.

 

[SteveH]

Salvation Army yes, but we make a direct donation or drop a check in the bell, I don't drop change off in kettles or do the round up thing at stores. Each year our Rotary Club takes a Saturday to volunteer to ring the bell, if not they pay somebody to stand out there and do it. I know how well the use the money and out of respect to my dad I donate as it was the only charity he ever donated to. Any other group that hangs out at the grocery story I have no issue walking right past them, I acknowledge them and smile but I decline to donate, same goes for any group that uses the store to solicit funds. We give, just not through those methods.

 

[powellrj]

I will drop money in Salvation Army if I have cash, but don’t drop in every bucket.

 

[Mariearistocat]

I only give to animal charities.

Where I used to work, they created a 'Community Fund', which would be funded through donations direct debited from our paychecks. They encouraged a 1% pay deduction. At the meeting with our manager, director and VP, conveniently days before annual bonuses, they would pass out the forms and encourage this 1% and have us fill out in front of them. It really felt like mafia tactics. I asked if there would be any animal charities who would benefit from this fund. Someone snapped 'are the animals going to help you if you are ever in need??" I guess we are only supposed to help who can help us! Left such a bad taste. Pretty much our charities of choice are animal rescue and also giving directly to classrooms. Anyway, a day later I asked HR for my 1% form back--easy peasy!

 

[sk!mom]

1. No. 2. No 3. No Don't get me wrong we do donate as we can. I recently checked what we had given to our church (I work there) over the last number of years and went Whoa! We gave that on our salaries at that time. Wow!

DH and I are better off financially, but we have 2 in college now and a junior in high school. We have made the decision to cut our charitable giving drastically and give more toward our kids. As they were growing up, we did without a lot and they all wore lots of hand me downs. So we feel strongly that helping them through college years (and grades are great and they are maintaining scholarships) is important as we did not save for college because we could not afford to when they were young. Our own poor college kids are our charity!

I feel you. Our youngest graduated last May and through the college years we often said, that she was our primary charity. We did continue our regular contributions but didn't give the larger from time to time ones.

The Salvation Army does a lot for people in our community, so I always try to put a little cash in the bell ringers bucket when I pass by.

I am about 50/50 on whether I give the extra dollar or round up my change at the checkout at stores when they are doing collections.

The bulk of my charitable giving goes to my church.

We give the majority of our donations to our church as our tithes. If I have cash I will throw a dollar or two in Salvation Army pot. I don’t give to everything when asked or we would be broke.

To those that give the bulk of your charitable giving to a church, does your church do a significant amount of charitable work i.e. helping those in need? My church does not. I would liken it more to a country club. I realize that contributions are necessary for it to operate but I view it as more of an entertainment expense and give my charitable funds to those organizations that are doing charitable work.

 

[DisneyHardin]

To those that give the bulk of your charitable giving to a church, does your church do a significant amount of charitable work i.e. helping those in need? My church does not. I would liken it more to a country club. I realize that contributions are necessary for it to operate but I view it as more of an entertainment expense and give my charitable funds to those organizations that are doing charitable work.

Yes - the church I belong to does TONS of outreach. Of course, it takes a good chunk of money to run the church - I go to a fairly large church with a large, newish building and a large staff. Having such a nice building though, is part of our outreach. Many community groups (Scouts, AA, Al-Alon, etc) are able to use the building free of charge for their programming.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Other than Salvation Army bell ringers, I always do all my charitable giving directly with the organization. Store and cash register giving is a hard pass. For one, you don’t get any of the tax benefits when you give through the store and second the store claims your donation on THEIR taxes which I always find super shady. No Walmart YOU did not give $100k to Charity x, your shoppers gave a $100k and you took the benefit and credit. If a store matched donations that would be different.

Thanks for this because it made me think about some of the programs that Amazon offers (and that I signed up for but didn't really understand until today, like the Smile program, which donates 0.5% of your purchases to your charity of choice). I didn't realize you had to specifically shop under Amazon Smile.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/about/ref=smi_aas_redirect?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Looking also at some of their Wish Lists, they make it easy to donate items to a charity, but no tax benefits. To me I guess it's not much different than dropping food off at the food pantry or clothing at the Goodwill or toys for less fortunate children, etc. - is it?

https://www.littlebirdie.me/blog/12-charities-with-amazon-wish-lists

 

[galaxygirl76]

I refuse to give to the salvation army but we donate a lot to our school district and various animal charities. Sometimes the local grocery chain has events to round up for veteran charities or food banks and we donate frequently to them as well.

 

[iivye]

Always put a $1 in the red kettle if I have it and always add $1 to my bill at Pet Smart for the animal charity. I've also given money to people on the street. I have pretty much stopped giving to mail solicitations because they just keep increasing the mailings. I favor military related charities such as Wounded Warriors and the Snowball Express. I don't itemize on my taxes so I don't get a tax break for my donations.

 

[SteveH]

I've also given money to people on the street.

If I could, I'd love to encourage you to not give to people on the street and instead give to the agencies that provide shelter and food for those that want to get off the street.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I can usually ignore the kettles pretty well, especially since I don't carry cash. Make no mistake, I do donate to charities. I am just picky about them.

 

[Ellie008]

If my kids ask I will give them $ to put in the kettles, otherwise I pass. Maybe 1 in 10 times I am asked to round up or whatever at a retail store I will do it, but only if my kids are along. I do these things only to make our charitable giving a little more tangible/noticeable for the kids. The vast majority of our charitable giving is online directly to the organizations we support. I try to get my kids involved in that a little bit as well, but it seems more abstract.

 

[gotomu212]

Thanks for this because it made me think about some of the programs that Amazon offers (and that I signed up for but didn't really understand until today, like the Smile program, which donates 0.5% of your purchases to your charity of choice). I didn't realize you had to specifically shop under Amazon Smile.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/about/ref=smi_aas_redirect?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Looking also at some of their Wish Lists, they make it easy to donate items to a charity, but no tax benefits. To me I guess it's not much different than dropping food off at the food pantry or clothing at the Goodwill or toys for less fortunate children, etc. - is it?

https://www.littlebirdie.me/blog/12-charities-with-amazon-wish-lists

Glad I could help. When I donate to our Goodwill I get a tax receipt from them so that giving is still “recorded” and I believe our big community food bank does the same. You may be able to do that with your receipts if you buy Wish List items (read the fine print). It’s not all about getting “credit” but we do like to have an organized approach to our giving rather than give to every single group that hits us up.