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Comment by blakeja | Hacker News Reader

"I just say yes, then figure it out later"

I like that.

Another way to read this is, "Never, ever have a free price point."

> When the Georgia Aquarium broke ground in 2005, UPS made a generous donation: at no cost, they offered their logistics and shipping services for whatever the facility needed.

Fair enough. I like it. So how did the aquarium reply:

>"we’d like to transport ... four whale sharks in Taipei and two beluga whales in Mexico to Atlanta".

There is no way UPS would have been shipping those whales at any reasonable (even discount) price point.

At least they got this article out of it!

A charitable donation is not a "free price point", and I doubt a company like UPS didn't anticipate the possibility that the open-ended donation might be somewhat expensive.

UPS knew what they were getting into. You don't pledge transportation services to the world's largest aquarium without expecting to ship some fish.

The publicity was probably worth the cost. If I had to ship a terracotta army, I'd much rather go with a company that is known to have successfully shipped a couple of sharks and whales.

The cost was probably tabulated and tax deductible. That helps.

I don't understand this mentality. Costs are always tax-deductible, it's not as if this is some added perk. Same with donations, "ooh, donations are tax-deductible!" Yeah, so is an advertising campaign, you're not doing me a favor here.

If you've already decided you're going to be charitable you can be much more generous because of the deduction.

With that said Georgia Aquarium keeps killing their beluga whales.

> If you've already decided you're going to be charitable you can be much more generous because of the deduction.

Can you explain that a bit? If I'm going to spend $1000 on ads, I can write them off as an expense, and save $X off taxes. If I decide to spend it on charity, will I save more than $X on taxes?

Charity gets you goodwill and free distribution of your message.

Advertising just annoys people -- to the extent that they will install software designed to block it.

Note that a) UPS didn't have to pay a additional dime for this article, or hundreds of others (google "UPS shipping beluga") and b) most of us are reading it voluntarily.

Which do you think is the better deal? Between this article and an intrusive popup ad jumping in your face, which do you think makes people think more positively toward UPS?

Without the deduction for charitable contributions, that wouldn't be an option.

This is irrelevant. I'm asking why "tax deductible" is touted as a benefit of charity, when costs are already tax deductible.

Without special legislation, charitable donations are not "costs", as they are not required for normal operation of a business.

I'm not sure why you have difficulty understanding this.

I'm not sure why you think "I have difficulty understanding" it when you're the first person saying it.

Give that it's clear to everyone else, it's obvious that you have difficulty understanding it. Or possibly you're just trolling.

In any case, it should be all sorted now, so we're done here.

Or maybe I'm just not from the US?

Where are you from that "charitable donation" and "cost" are synonymous?

Costs are subtracted from income to get net income, by contrast charitable deductions are subtracted directly from the tax owing.

Oh, really? Does that mean that, if you owe $1000 in tax, you can give it to a charity of your choice, rather than the government? That sounds like a pretty big advantage.

In canada, anyway, you have a limit as to how much you can donate and you receive tax credits in return. It's not 1:1 though, so it's not as if I can just donate my taxes to a charity rather than the government.

To my knowledge, this is not true in the US at least. Folks would just donate whatever they owe in taxes to their church or favorite charity if it directly reduced owed taxes.

If I donate $1k, it reduces my taxable income by $1k, saving me ~$300ish.

No, charitable donations are deductions, which mean they are deducted from income. What is deducted directly from tax liability is credits, but charitable donations don't give 1:1 credits.

More than the article--they have signs up in the aquarium talking about how UPS shipped the whales there.

I didn't know this, and wish I could delete or edit my comment. It's quite clear that this was done in exchange for publicity for UPS, which genuinely seems like a fair trade to me.

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