To add to what the OP said.
A store or a business donating items that they cannot sell, and then taking the full price as a tax credit, is not charity.
For example the local comic book store will donate unsold comic books to the schools but claim the whole retail price as their writeoff when in truth, they were about to be trashed.
That’s what I do for a friend’s daughter. We don’t see each other regularly anymore, so ordering actual boxes of cookies and figuring out delivery is too complicated. I just send a check, and the cookies I “buy” are donated to the troops or local food banks. I still buy cookies from the girls who haunt the local grocery stores, so everyone wins. 
I’d argue that charity is in the receiving, not the giving. If a homeless guy goes to a soup kitchen and gets a free meal, that’s charity. I don’t think it matters if the food is provided free by anonymous donors, or if the whole thing is a tax dodge from some billionaire sociopath who doesn’t give a shit about the poor. The hungry are still being fed - and that’s charity.
[INDENT] 7) There are eight levels of tzedaka, each greater than the next. The greatest level, above which there is no other, is to strengthen the name of another Jew by giving him a present or loan, or making a partnership with him, or finding him a job in order to strengthen his hand until he needs no longer [beg from] people. For it is said, “You shall strengthen the stranger and the dweller in your midst and live with him,” {Leviticus XXV:35} that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall [upon the mercy of the community] or be in need.
Below this is the one who gives tzedaka to the poor, but does not know to whom he gives, nor does the recipient know his benefactor. For this is performing a mitzva for the sake of Heaven. This is like the Secret [Anonymous] Office in the Temple. There the righteous gave secretly, and the good poor drew sustenance anonymously. This is much like giving tzedaka through a tzedaka box. One should not put into the box unless he knows that the one responsible for the box is faithful and wise and a proper leader like Rabbi Hananya ben Teradyon.
Below this is one who knows to whom he gives, but the recipient does not know his benefactor. The greatest sages used to walk about in secret and put coins into the doors of the poor. It is worthy and truly good to do this if those who are responsible for collecting tzedaka are not trustworthy.
Below this is one who does not know to whom he gives, but the poor person does know his benefactor. The greatest sages used to pack coins into their scarves and roll them up over their backs, and the poor would come and pick [the coins out of the scarves] so that they would not be ashamed.
Below this is one who gives to the poor person before being asked.
Below this is one who gives to the poor person after being asked.
Below this is one who gives to the poor person gladly and with a smile.
Below this is one who gives to the poor person unwillingly. [/INDENT] - Maimonides
Not quite.
If I buy GS Cookies from my daughter, lets say $20 worth - about half of that goes to the baker. The other half is divided out…a small amount goes to incentives for my daughter to sell cookies - patches, notebooks, stuffed animals - at the top end maybe an iPad if you sell several thousand boxes - that’s going “to my daughter (we usually waive the incentives and it ends up back at council.)” About $6 will go council - council is the regional organization of troops. They’ll use the bulk of that money to keep camps going and offer camp scholarships and provide programming. About $4 of it will go to the troop. That goes back to my daughter again. The troop will decide what to do with it. If I buy them from a stranger - her troop gets that money. Not quite the exact same place.
In our troop the Girls sold cookies for about six years - they’ve stopped now. They did a few things with their money for them - bowling, camp weekends and a trip to Hilton Head (that I subsidized - NOT a tax writeoff because its my daughter and NOT charity). Also GS dues, books and badges. But they also planted flowers in a alzheimers home every year, spending a couple hundred dollars of their cookie money there. I oversubsidized the trip - and the girls are done selling cookies. They’ll have about $2000 when they graduate high school - its going to their schools Relay for Life for the American Cancer society.
Now, which of my dollars ended up charitable would be hard to figure out in that situation.
If you get to write it off your income tax as a charitable contribution, it’s charity.
IMNSHO, a lot of stuff that qualifies on the tax write off list shouldn’t.
I agree with the OP. If you are getting a direct benefit—in other words, if you are essentially buying (or helping others buy) yourself or your own group something that you (and they) will use—then it should not be considered charity.
OK, thanks for the correction. But… the amount going to “charity” is the same, no? Assuming my daughter and the stranger’s daughter are int he same troop or troops with the same policy of how the dough (heh!) is apportioned.
And I do the donation thing, too. Frankly, I don’t care much for GS cookies, but I’ll give the little girl selling them some money, and then have the cookies donated somewhere else.
nm
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are only saying this out of ignorance, and are open to being educated.
Charity should be tax-deductible because of a combination of two facts:
Making people pay income tax on money they are giving to charity punishes them for helping the charity the best way they can. It is in nobody’s best interests to tell a lawyer they’re better off working for an hour in a soup kitchen than working for an hour as a lawyer and donating their earnings, because receiving an hour of lawyer’s wages might pay a day’s wages for someone who just needs to serve soup.
If your daughter and her friend are in the same troop - all the money goes to the same place (its different with Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts have an individual account, so when you buy popcorn for a Boy Scout, some of the money ends up in his account to pay for his expenses - like camping).
If you buy cookies from a stranger in a grocery store, about $.50 per box (varies by area) goes to the troop. Out of that, the girls decide what they want to do with the money, so if you are interested in not paying for upper middle class girls to go to Disney, find a troop whose plans for at least some of the money are charitable (or alternatively, a troop from a poorer neighborhood who wants to use cookie money to go roller skating). They are supposed to have a plan for their money - ask them what it is.
If I follow the logic of the OP…
So I donate to my alma mater. Not charity, right?
But I designate the donation to support medical research. So it IS charity, right?
But it is medical research focused on curing a disease I or a loved one has/had. So it is not charity?
But I’m not asking for my name to be put on anything. So it is charity?
But I take a tax deduction. Back to it not being charity?
I’m so confused. Here, just take my check and cure cancer already.
I guess I shouldn’t feel good about donating to public radio either, since 1) I regularly listen to it and 2) sometimes they’ll announce my name on air if I donate at just the right time. The world would be better off if I donated my $100 to a poor family to keep their lights on for another month. It’s not like that poor family wouldn’t also benefit from public radio. Charity is only about sparing people from death, apparently. No good quality of life for you, poor people!! You’ll listen to that horrible The John Boy and Billy Radio Show and you’ll LIKE it, dammit!!
I just contributed $100 to my local public radio station yesterday. It’s not charity. I’m paying for something I value for myself. Yes, my contribution helps other people who might also value it, but I’m doing it because I want public radio to exist for my benefit. That’s what I feel good about. I don’t pretend that I should feel good for doing something for someone else.
I donate to homeless charities to assuage my guilt when I tell panhandlers “sorry, I don’t have change”. I don’t think I’ve ever given to charity strictly out of a sense of altruism. There’s always something in it for me when I give to a cause.
But I guess I’ll stop donating since I’m not doing it for the right reasons.
Donating something to someone so they can improve their lives in whatever way they see fit because it makes you feel like a good person is very different than “donating” something that really amounts to buying yourself a material item of value, like a new church organ.
If I donate to Red Cross and then end up relying on it the very next day because my house burned down, guess what? My donation doesn’t suddenly become a service fee.
I doubt I listen to $100 worth of public radio every year. And I seriously doubt the person who donates thousands of dollars gets that much back in return. If these aren’t charitable donations, then what they hell are they? They sure as hell aren’t subscription fees.
Is someone who donates to public radio Mother Teresa? No. But I don’t think anyone has been arguing that.
Should all charitable organizations have tax-exempt status? No, I don’t think so. But I am not at all convinced that a donor’s intentions should define what is or isn’t a charity. The onus should be on the organization to demonstrate its worthiness as a charity. The donor’s purity of heart or ulterior motive is irrelevant.
That’s very different from knowing in advance that your contribution is primarily buying a tangible benefit for yourself or the group you belong to.
Let’s say I agree that it’s “very different” to give to an organization that may benefit me, however tenuously, versus an organization that will not benefit me except in a “warm and fuzzy” way. I don’t agree it’s “very different”, but I don’t care enough to argue about it anymore. So let’s just say I agree with this pedantry.
Why is this a problem worthy of getting one’s panties in a wad?
It’s complaining online. It’s what the Internet is for. Plus, It costs far less in effort and expensethan panty-wadding.