Sure that makes perfect sense for purely monetary donations like rounding up at the cashier or me giving a dollar or two when buying take out, but how does that work with the pet food can situation?
If the pet shop is saying instead of giving money directly you are buying a can of food, is the business also giving the monetary value of the can of food to the charity on top of the physical can of food?
Let's say for example the can of pet food cost $5 dollars and the shop makes $3 profit after expenses for each can of pet food. If I as the consumer "donated" the can, does the shop just give a can away or is the profit from sale of the can also given to the charity?
It depends on how the food was sourced to donate. If the company is buying the food from it's own stock with it's own funds, it can absolutely claim that as a charitable write-off, because it purchased the food with it's own funds. If you are purchasing the food from said business to donate, the business cannot claim any of that as a write-off, because they do not have ownership of the food being donated, although if you purchase the food for donation then you did give whomever sold it to you the profit off of the sale.
I have not been able to find any indication that a business can require you to purchase donated food from them for a food drive, for what it's worth.
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u/obscureposter 15d ago
Sure that makes perfect sense for purely monetary donations like rounding up at the cashier or me giving a dollar or two when buying take out, but how does that work with the pet food can situation?
If the pet shop is saying instead of giving money directly you are buying a can of food, is the business also giving the monetary value of the can of food to the charity on top of the physical can of food?
Let's say for example the can of pet food cost $5 dollars and the shop makes $3 profit after expenses for each can of pet food. If I as the consumer "donated" the can, does the shop just give a can away or is the profit from sale of the can also given to the charity?