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Alphabet Donated Its Employees' Holiday Gifts To Charity (fortune.com)
The employee perks at Google are legendary, and they've always included an over-the-top holiday gift for every employee. In the past, the company has surprised its 70,000 employees with Nexus phones, Android smartwatches, and Chromebooks. Fortune adds:This year employees speculated they might get Google's new Pixel phones or a Google Home unit, the company's competitor to Amazon's Echo. But they forgot: They don't work for Google anymore. They work for Alphabet. Instead of a shiny new gadget, Alphabet employees got an email. On Thursday Bloomberg published a bruising story about the new, cost-conscious regime of Alphabet, driven by its corporate re-organization and its ex-Wall Street CFO, Ruth Porat. Shortly after the story hit, employees were informed that their holiday gift this year was a donation to charity, Fortune has learned. Alphabet donated $30 million worth of Chromebooks, phones, and associated tech support to schools on its employees' behalf.
If I can't write a donation off on my taxes, then I didn't donate it. Fuck you Google.
So does this mean the employees get the write off or just Alphabet?
Their bonuses were gifted to "charity" aka, the shareholders...
Any employer can donate the gifts (or funds) they would have spent on employees, or any amount for that matter, to charity. That part of the story is clear and good on Alphabet for helping out needy schools to the tune of more money than I'll ever make in my lifetime.
What is not accurate is the phrase "on its employees behalf" and other posters have already indicated that if the employees don't get the tax advantage, then the donation is not "on their behalf." Indeed the incentive is for Alphabet to get the deduction, effectively providing a $30M gift which costs them probably half that.
However, unlike other posters who say "If I'm not getting the benefit then F*** them" I think on it this way: If I were an employee and was told "This year instead of giving YOU a gift we're giving one to a poor child in need" then I would think about whether I was ENTITLED to a gift (no), or whether I just got spoilt and greedy and want want wanted a gift, and now I'm crying my big head to sleep on my big pillow.
Good on Alphabet. Good on everybody who supports helping out those in need.
E
P.S. I'm not a tax expert, lawyer, nor doctor. But I do write my opinions on the Internet.
As a way of thanking you for working hard for our company all year to help us be a success in our marketplace, we are giving other people a buttload of stuff on your behalf.
Hope you saved enough money so you could donate to a charity that you want to donate to, because, well, screw them.
Signed,
The ABC Grinch
If they had paid the employees then the payroll costs would be an expense so the net effect for the company is the same. Donating the money to charity makes them look nicer but has the downside of pissing off the employees.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
An unlike what gavron thinks, this is not a god damn "gift". This is a "reward".
To me that is exactly right. Going forward will Google donate different amounts of money to charity at the end of each year depending on employee performance? That would seem to be the case if they really are taking bonuses and giving them away.
No matter what I can't see how this is good for morale, or retention in a pretty hot hiring environment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They start out often quite employee centric....sure you work hard, but they give you lots of perks at work, free food drinks, kitchens, parties on and off campus...even keggers....
And then..they get a bit too big, the owners cede management to more managerial types, who count pennies but don't know the worth of a HAPPY EMPLOYEE....and then well, the fun and perks start to disappear, and soon....it is like any other boring job, and those little extras that build team work, or make you feel 'ok' about working a few extra hours to get something out the door, *vanish*.
At that point, unless the pay is insanely good...no real reason to stay or show any type of loyalty whatsoever.
The soul of the company is gone.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You just don't do something like this.
EVERYONE knows this is a tax write-off even if you honestly didn't intend it to be that way it is how it will universally be interpreted.
If you didn't want to give Christmas bonus simply not giving them to people may be a disappointment but pulling this shit is far worse. It is essentially telling your employees to go fuck themselves while announcing they will not be receiving a bonus.
Given current labor environment whoever made this decision to announce donations like this should probably be asked to resign.
The person doing the "giving" (Alphabet) gets the tax write-off, so the employees got absolutely nothing. Alphabet is in no way required to give their employees gifts, and I think it would have been better if they didn't. This is just an failed attempt at good PR. I'm happy Alphabet is donating to charity - they just shouldn't be pretending they're doing it for their employees.
This is what happens when you work for a company that values it's social awareness and community factor as much as Google does.
They probably thought that their employees felt the same and would be pleased helping people less fortunate than themselves. (Especially since demographically, their employees vote for a party that is all for taking people's stuff and redistributing it to the less fortunate.)
They wanted the tax deduction and the good press. Dicks.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
To be fair, I would have expected the bean counters to be in control of an accounting firm to start with.
something socially responsible
Screw the workers by not giving them something that they usually get. Check
Make a massive donation to gain a huge tax write off when you already pay next to no taxes. Check.
CEO takes a bonus likely equal to the after tax donation that was made for saving money and screwing employees at the same time. Check.
Get either shills or complete idiot's support on Slashdot for actions. Social responsibility at its best.
That is at least two or three years down the road.
Next year is the "Jelly of the Month Club."
It's the gift that keeps on giving all year long!
So it doesn't matter whether the company or the employee gets the deduction - it works out the same either way
It isn't the same. It can matter alot.
First, the company is picking the charity, not you. For example, someone impacted by breast cancer may want to donate to a charity related to that instead of handing more money to schools. I know at least two dozen charities that are more appropriate than throwing more money to my local school district which has already gotten a tax levy to spend $1.2 MILLION on giving students iPads. (I would be VERY unhappy if my employer said they valued my work so much they were going to give more of my money to a "charity" that was already taxing me to do the same thing.)
Second, if you get the money it may put you in a status where it makes sense to itemize, and you may then deduct a lot of things that would otherwise not be deductible. It may increase your giving because you know that you can deduct it.
Third, it will appear on your annual income statements, which are used by the SSA to determine retirement payments, or if a year counts towards retirement at all. It can also have an effect on how much you can borrow as it will be shown as income.
But overall, giving the money to the employee means that the employee chooses where his money goes, not the company. It may help the tax liability of the employee by allowing itemization to increase deductions after donating the money. Or it may simply be a really useful $3000 if it isn't donated.
In either case, it isn't the same thing even if in some cases the ends are the same. The ends don't justify the means.