OT. Charity Ratings

It was a little strange to me but after I retired I never heard another peep out of my company. They sold my annuity to a financial company and my benefits are handled through another company. It was a clean break. The only thing I ever see comes from stock holder relations, same as any other share holder.

Mine, was DuPont, is screwing us retirees. Company split after uniting with Dow to Dow-DuPont to now DuPont, Dow and Corteva. Corteva got stuck with the pension responsibility. This included a health care supplemental and insurance subsidy. Next year they are withdrawing dental supplemental and insurance. Now I hear that pension will go over to an insurance company. I think vulture capitalists are involved with both. Pension is a contract they have to honor but there was no contract for health care supplemental and other companies sued for withdrawing it have not lost in court for doing it.

I also have stock from all the companies. Voting proxy against their management and salary increases is like pissing in the wind.

If you have a union some things may be safe. The company I worked for did not. When they were bought out, the pension plan changed. Costs many of the workers around $ 1000 less per month when they retired. If retired early , no helth insurance either instead of the 80% pay of it like was promised. That could have ammounted to another $ 1000 a month for a man and wife if they retired before medicare took over.

There should be a law that is a company is taken over by another the workers at the time should still have the benefits they had with the old company unless the new one is better. Hard to justify people putting in

I haven't figured out that business model. Cards, calendars, socks, pens, calculators, address stickers, day planners, tote bags, and one even sends a check for a couple of bucks and they're asking for $25.

They must get a better hit ratio than I think.

Must be why my doctor isn't big a prescribing the latest miracle drug. She ain't like that.

The Army's response:

I went to the Salvation Army website itself and they deny it.

The Salvation Army is not exclusively a USA entity ...

"The letter sent to donors with the guidebook mentions that it is from the International Salvation Army, provided through its new International Social Justice Commission. The guidebook is to act as an addendum to The Salvation Army?s International Positional Statement."

John T.

Not a problem you will encounter with MCC

It was started by a Brit and the current general is a Canadian.

And when your tax receipt for charitable donation is made out to anonymous and mailed to occupant at no fixed address .. will the revenuers still accept it ? John T.

You can write $249.99 without a receipt. I am not sure how many $249s you can write before someone wants to chat tho.

Ahhh ... OK. .. we need receipts for everything. It's why I always reply " No thank you." when asked at the store check-out if I want to donate to xyz charity. John T.

I used to save my register receipts when I gave money to Harry Chapin but I wasn't real diligent about filing them. Nobody ever asked.

Last year was the first time I was able to take a deduction for a charitable contribution and no receipt was necessary. If you're not paying on a mortgage doing better than the standard deduction is difficult.

There _should_ be universal single-payer heathcare with a common funding pool to which _everyone_ contributes.

That has been my situation of the last several years. Only big deduction I have is property tax and I'd probably have to pay twice that to exceed the standard deduction.

Charitable donations go on 1040 line 10b, if you don't itemize. It is in addition to the standard deduction. George W Bush did that for us.