Taxes: are “micro-donations” at checkout tax-exempt?

Round up for generosity. Have you adopted this increasingly common practice at checkouts which consists of making a “micro-donation”? This benefits associations and therefore allows you to be generous without really realizing it, with each transaction if you wish. Launched in 2013, this device has won over consumers. In France, last year the total amount collected exceeded 13 million euros in 2023. 

As the deadline approaches to submit your income tax return for 2023, it is appropriate to ask yourself: can these amounts be tax exempt? 

Generally speaking, if you make donations to general interest associations you can obtain a tax reduction of 66 or 75% of the amount of the donation depending on the association. This additional boost comes from an adaptation of the so-called “Coluche” law, a measure which had made it possible to reduce donor taxes, to further encourage philanthropy.  

Deductions are made up to a ceiling equal to 20% of your taxable income. Beyond that, the excess payment can be carried over to the following five years.

If you request a tax reduction in this context, the tax administration may require a tax receipt, in principle provided by the beneficiary associations. 

From now on, “solidarity roundings” at the checkout can no longer result in the issuance of a tax receipt. This is what Mathieu Jubré, the general director of the solidarity company microDON, which is organizing this collection, explained to the newspaper Le Monde.

Previously, the sums thus obtained passed through an “endowment fund” which was responsible for redistributing the sums to selected general interest associations and could issue tax receipts. But this system has been abandoned and another organization collects micro-donations and the latter is not authorized to issue tax receipts. 

That said, in fact, this possibility seemed largely ignored by users since only “seven requests” for these supporting documents had been made to the endowment fund in 2022, indicates the head of microDON.

On the other hand, other donations can allow you to reduce the amount of your income tax. The procedure for tax exemption on donations made to causes that are close to your heart and which are recognized as being of public interest is relatively simple.