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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.
Money for people.
So, get to work. waddah think we are running here? A charity?!
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
If I can't write a donation off on my taxes, then I didn't donate it. Fuck you Google.
P.S. The CEO got a $12 million Christmas bonus and kept it all.
We just didn't want to give it to you.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
It actually seems like a pretty reasonable employee gift to me.
It's weird of them to not give their employees some of their own products though, make employees happy, and get people talking about the stuff.
Remember... Working for Google is the greatest gift of all.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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.
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
Of course Alphabet gets the tax write-off. That's why the "banker" at the top changed the rules. To that mindset, employees are just a drag on revenues and not worth what they're paid...no matter how low. And, now, with a new appointment to leadership for the Department of Labor, we can expect any "floor" on earnings in general (e.g., "minimum wage") to evaporate to zero.
We are merely serfs working in the world created by, and enjoyed solely by, the 1% who own more net worth than the 99% of the rest of us (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35339475).
Know your place, serf. You exist only to benefit the wealthy...unless you ARE wealthy.
VMware sent out an email to employees and said "There is $$$ in your http://brightfunds.org/ account. Give it to whatever charity you care about". And the employees do get the tax write-off.
- Vincit qui patitur.
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
to add insult to injury, this is probably a thinly disguised move to unload slow moving inventory and deduct it at full price + "tech support"
OMG LOL FTG
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
https://www.irs.gov/businesses...
If Alphabet is actually donating shit in the employee's names, then the employee can deduct it.
Alphabet pays the tax on the gift to the employee (see the link). The employee donates the gift and deducts it.
The fact that the employee never received the gift directly doesn't matter. All that matters is whether or not Alphabet is donating on its employee's behalf, as stated in the summary, or if it's donating in its own name.
The giver (Alphabet) pays the gift tax, not the recipient (the employee). The donor (the employee) gets to deduct it.
Its even worse. Out here in Cupertino the Schools have a program where every kid has to have an iPad as homework will be assigned through an iPad. No choice or option for using another platform. The first year Apple donated the iPads .Once the teachers got used to using it now its the parents can buy their own, buy one from the school at a discounted price or if you are really really cant afford an ipad the School will lend out last years iPads. Guess how many parents told their kids no you cant have the shiny new one like all your classmates and should use the older school issued one.
Apple donated for one year and now has a yearly revenue stream. You dont even have to wait till they grow up
**Life is too short to be serious**
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.
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.
Do you think upper management ever sent themselves a letter that said in effect "Instead of your regular big bonuses, the company has instead donated X $Millions to a charity in your name. Have a Merry Christmas."? I think not. If they would never do this to themselves, why do it to all the other employees?
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.