Corporate Charity: Not What You Think
It’s true that many of the corporations that operate within the United States are also some of the most generous “givers” in terms of charity. Charitable donations by corporate entities amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide, shoring up low-income kids seeking a college education, food programs for starving children worldwide, or financial support for wounded veterans. Up front, these charitable donations seem to cast a very positive light on corporations, a fact that they understand and advertise. The reality is that corporations’ charities are a smokescreen for something that sounds far more “corporate”; their bottom line.
A recent article featured in Salon reports that "Goldman Sachs Gives", the financial giant’s charitable program, is intended to “build and stabilize communities” in the United States in which it operates. It does this by providing social and educational services to vulnerable youth and their households. They’ve donated millions over the years to this end as a component of Corporate Social Responsibility, that many corporations ostensibly follow.
The reality behind these types of efforts is that almost every American corporation plays a significant role in creating those vulnerable communities to which they give. They do this by taking efforts to pay absolutely no taxes to the U.S. government, which provides those types of social safety nets that allow vulnerable households to pick themselves up out of poverty. They undermine local and state governments ability to rebuild infrastructure in vulnerable communities and support schools and other public services. By handing a few million dollars out to kids programs and college funds (a pittance to businesses of this size), they attempt to fool the American public into believing that corporations exhibit social responsibility, when they’re actually fleecing American tax payers.
In 2010, GE reported over $14 billion in profits, a third of which was generated in the U.S. GE paid nothing in taxes to the government, instead collecting a $3.2 billion tax credit. If GE paid out $10 million in charitable donations to struggling communities in a single year (which is a generous estimate), they’re still paying out .003% of what they’re earning in taxpayer-generated tax benefits. Furthermore, those charitable donations are claimed in their tax preparation as write-offs.
The moral of the story is that a corporation will never “donate” anything. It’s designed to grow its bottom line and be profitable. Corporate social responsibility has not existed for several decades now, contrary to what many corporate PR departments would have you believe, and for politicians, judges, pundits or voters to pretend otherwise is irresponsible








