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TikTok gifts are not charitable donations. They are in-app purchases. For every gift you buy, streamers earn "diamonds" which can be withdrawn for cash.

You cannot built this kind of functionality without giving Google/Apple a 30% cut, plus they collect sales tax and VAT on your behalf.

I'll give you an example. If I sell an in-app purchase for a price of £1 in the UK, £0.17 go to the government, and £0.25 to Apple/Google. I'm left with £0.58!

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That's the point and the title is misleading. If you buy goods from an organization because you'd like to support their cause, that's not a donation but a simple purchase. Even though 'donation' is not mentioned here, it is implied in many of the comments I read in this thread. But that's far from what it actually is and how the transaction is worked. The story would actually be outrageous if some vendor took x % from a 'donation'. But that's not the case here. These are 'purchases' with the intention of helping someone. Nevertheless, the intention doesn't matter at all here. If you want to donate, you'll have to look for a place to 'donate'. And then your transaction will be handled accordingly (hopefully).

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