• basic_spud@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    So, you’re kind of correct. However, you CAN make profit by acting as an ‘organizer’ for the charity event, where the charity pays you the money as a service, but directly gets the donations. See: Games Done Quick, which is a for-profit LLC that the various charities they ‘support’ pay them to put on the event. Of course, this number naturally is likely to end up being a % of the last event’s donations.

    • sugar_in_your_tea
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      11 months ago

      I don’t see what that has to do with the premise, which is the somehow donating to charity gives you a net profit because taxes. The real issue here is that people don’t seem to understand taxes (understandable, it’s complex).

      Here’s how it works WRT to taxes:

      1. you normally make $X
      2. you receive $Y in charitable donations, and donate that $Y to charity
      3. your taxable income is: $X + $Y - $Y = $X

      Middle-manning charitable gifts is net zero tax-wise. The only potential for profit has nothing to do with tax write offs:

      • pay people involved a salary for operating the charity - only works if you own the nonprofit, and then there are issues if you have people getting paid by both wings (lots of tax scrutiny there)
      • charity event increases sales of your for-profit venture - e.g. more people watch your other videos or buy your merch - this is why YouTubers do it, but this still has nothing to do with taxes
      • charge the nonprofit for a spot on a for-profit stage - again, not sure if that’s legal, but they’d have to pay taxes on that income

      In short, donating to charity doesn’t somehow make you better off in terms of taxes, at best it helps you with your branding.