Royal Bank profits from Haiti disaster

Donors should be asking why their donations have not produced food, water, or medicines to most of those affected in Haiti. Where's the money gone?

That's easy-it went to the same half dozen families that have always run the place and always will run the place.

Hell some of them have been interviewed in the media and touted as 'tireless patriots'.

A whole bunch o' threads are landing in "introductions" instead of where they belong. Weird.

Moving to national news.

Difficult to understand this issue. Which fees did VISA and Mastercard waive? What transfers via RBC is the OP referring to? Transfers from Canadian accounts to private accounts in Haiti? What about the other banks? And like NDPP, I'm more concerned about what the donations are producing than if someone is getting a commission along the way.

NDP consumer protection critic Glenn Thibeault says: Every cent of each donation SHOULD go to the cardholder’s chosen charity.

I've been thinking of dropping VISA for another card anyway. Now's my chance to switch to a card company with a few scruples when it comes to not profiting from misery in one of Uncle Sam's client states.

I've often wondered about charity donations at places of business where the customers donate.  Does the company running the collection get the charitable tax deduction?

I note a London based, nationally prominent construction company matched funds that their employees donated.  I think that's great and laudable, but I have to wonder if they claim just half of the donation or the whole donation as a deduction?

In deffense of RBC, I'd guess that since fees are automated, they continued as per normal for Hatian relief donations.    Be that as it may though, there are undoubtedly work arounds on that either electronically or by totalling up the transaction fees and taking that money and donating it to Hatian Relief.     

This PR is so bad, it will take Navagator and a team of Margarte Wente's to spin it under the carpet.

Surely the employees get tax receipts? If so, I can't see the same donation being deductible twice. But what do I know. I contributed through my union (they're matching contributions up to a certain total limit) and forgot to ask about tax receipts.

Personally, I don't ask for reciepts for charitable donations, and I do them anonymously.   To me, that's charity.    If you donate money so you can put your corporate logo on a hospice for kids with cancer, or do it to show your neighbors what a good fellow you are, it stops being charity, in my mind.   

But that's a very personal view, and I don't think ill of anyone who doesn't adopt the same philosophy.   If we were to legislate my philosophy, there'd doubtless be much less giving, and that's not a good thing over all.

I'm just curious, and even if these corporations take money that isn't really theirs, and claim the tax deduction in whole or in part, I wouldn't change it if it meant that charities would suffer.   

I'd just like to know. 

I talked to someone who ran a food bank a long time ago, and they told me about a grocery store that dumped a bunch of potatoes on them-- half of them rotten.  But they got the reciept for a load of good potatoes.  When I expressed outrage, and said this practice should be exposed, they said half a load of potatoes is better than none.

To which I really had no retort.

I see your point, but I'd want to apply that case by case. I don't give a lot to charity, because I don't really believe in it. Most of what passes for "charity" should either be handled through social programs domestically or foreign aid internationally. The only reason I did the Haiti thing was because the union put out the call, and I had no deep moral reason to defy it individually.

But the tax receipt thing is important. As long as you're going to give, the deduction enables you to give more. It's really an indirect way of getting the federal and provincial governments to match part of your donation.

If you ask for a tax receipt you get write off and more is available to charity. That's what I do. I do not use Visa but I think AMEX or Mastercard does the same......I hope I'm wrong. 

Yeah, that's why I'd be carefull about being all self righteous about charity and taxes and the morality of it all.   

As a side bar on the issue of matching funds, that idea sprang from the head of Ben Franklin, and Franklin's will started a charity trust that didn't wrap up it's affairs untill just recently-- though it did change in response to the changes that took place in the over two centuries it existed.  

Now, I am going to go and wrestle with my conscience to see if my prudence in charity on Haiti and other causes is in fact prudence, or parsimony.   It strikes me that no system is going to be perfect.

I think that charity is inherently oppressive, no matter what tax reciepts or credit you take for giving. I would suggest having a look at some of Paulo Freire's work on the concept of "charity" in oppressive relationships.

The question is how to move from charity to responsibility and mutual aid? Part of the answer might lie in that Jesus story about the dude who gives the only penny he has versus the dude that gives lots but has lots more.

I agree, Le T.

good quote

Perhaps this should be a new discussion, I'm new to this.  My concern with our donations to relief efforts in Haiti is with Harper's grandstanding about matching them "dollar to dollar". which puts the rest, our taxes, in Bev Oda and CIDA's pot to wave around.

Richard Sanders has done great research on CIDA's support of all the wrong groups in Haiti, and how some were used to influence the CBC, in the past.  A good start is :
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/62/62.htm   pp 26-37.