These businesses make an effort to put their foundation-related donations out of mind.
But according to tax attorney Alexander Reid, who specializes in tax-exempt organizations, businesses do gain certain advantages from those gifts.

There are two advantages. One is the goodwill that the firm brand gains from making a donation to a nonprofit, he said. The second would be the tax-free advantage of a matching gift program.

In essence, businesses can deduct matching gift schemes from their taxes. However, because to Mississippi’s new tax credit, businesses can no longer hide behind their private foundations. According to Taylor, they must make a direct donation in order to qualify for the tax credit.

Corporate donating frequently seems unclear. Giving to Planned Parenthood and anti-abortion organizations, for instance, can appear incompatible. According to Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith, some of the charities that Shell employees donate to have conflicting goals or philosophies. But that’s because charitable giving is a decision made by an individual, not by the business.

According to Smith, thousands of organizations around the nation engage in this routine.

Entergy and Southern Firm spokespeople made similar claims that the financing isn’t actually a representation of the company’s principles because employees made the decision to donate, not the company.

Dochuk remarked that this wasn’t quite forthright or sincere.

According to Dochuk, businesses frequently use employee-based initiatives to direct their charity or political giving, allowing them to avoid overtly endorsing a political or religious ideology.

He cites a mid- 1970s Federal Election Commission ruling that made it simpler for businesses to support political causes or candidates while maintaining some measure of plausible deniability.

According to Dochuk, what you’re witnessing now is a continuation of a pattern that stretches back at least to the 1970s in which corporations with conservative executives use this method to donate to candidates and issues they find important without necessarily having to acknowledge their support.

Businesses contend that they do not support the causes or groups that their employees support, however in the instance of the Pregnancy Resource Act, the effect on women’s reproductive health care in the area is the same. Money from the company invariably goes to organizations with an anti-abortion stance.