[cdancette]

I think charity improves their public image more than fundamental research, that will be known only by specialists. Moreover, they have large tax incentives for charitable activities (not sure if they have for research too)

For the military computers, they had a clear interest in doing so, and the military keeps most of their research hidden, so I think it's not really comparable to public research

[pjc50]

> large tax incentives for charitable activities

People misunderstand how these work. You don't get money by giving away money. What happens is that the charity gets the money as if it were pre-tax, that's all.

(Trying to get the money back into the company from the charity after you've got the tax break is fraud)

[throwawayjava]

> People misunderstand how these work

Perhaps, but that doesn't make their conclusion incorrect.

Charitable contributions, properly structured and carefully targeted, are basically tax-free ad spend.

[pault]

I'm under the impression that it works like this: I make $100,000 this year, donate $20,000 to charity, pay taxes on $80,000 in income. Is this not accurate? My understanding is that it can save you money if you're just over the bottom end of a tax bracket. Not sure if that applies to corporations too.

[nradov]

That's not quite accurate. Charitable donations are (generally) deductible on income tax returns. But tax brackets apply at marginal levels. There is no way to actually "save" money by donating to charity. The only exception is if you donate goods and then cheat by valuing those goods at above the market rate; some charities used to facilitate this by giving out receipts for inflated values but the IRS has been cracking down on that.

[pjc50]

> I make $100,000 this year, donate $20,000 to charity, pay taxes on $80,000 in income. Is this not accurate?

That sounds accurate.

> it can save you money if you're just over the bottom end of a tax bracket.

That sounds like a misunderstanding of tax brackets - if the brackets are (e.g) 20% up to $80k and 40% above that, with no deductions, what do you pay if you earn $80,001?

[pault]

You're right. Obviously I've never given this subject much thought. :)

[eru]

I think it's relatively easy to set up a charity to do your basic research for you, and reap the tax benefits? (I'm not an American, and I assume you are talking about American tax system? Other countries are different.)

Universities are notorious for spinning their basic research into good PR (and often overblown press releases), even if it would only be interesting to specialists normally.

I think companies like Google (and earlier IBM) reap a lot of more specialised PR from their basic research: it helps with hiring to be seen as a cool company at the forefront of technology.

[watwut]

"I think it's relatively easy to set up a charity to do your basic research for you, and reap the tax benefits?"

That would likely qualify as tax fraud.

[nine_k]

This depends on what you do with the results. To qualify as a charity, such an org should probably make all the results public domain, instead of e.g. patenting them.

[eru]

Yep. Lots of eg cancer research charities.

[fjsolwmv]

IKEA does this. Their product design is done by a "charitable foundation"