[masukomi]

i would bet good money that GitHub controls a non-profit whose purpose is to give money to open source devs. Otherwise every donation to a sponsor would be a loss because they're passing on 100% of the money†. If, however, they're giving the money to a non-profit then it's all a tax write-off for them.

† yeah, yeah, soon they'll be charging 10% to companies who sponsor, but I'm betting us little folks donating are cumulatively at least a million dollars and they probably don't want to loose hundred thousand when they could have a tax credit for it.

[weird-eye-issue]

That's not how basic accounting and taxes works

You don't pay taxes on revenue, you pay it on profit. If they pay out all the revenue they owe taxes on $0