Is there a right percentage?

People will give you one confidently. The honest answer is that it is a conviction question rather than an accounting one, and a figure that ruins your ability to pay people is not more faithful for being larger.

Should I give if the business is losing money?

That is between you and your conscience, but be clear-eyed: giving from money you owe suppliers or staff moves the cost onto them. Their claim is real too.

Is it wrong to take a tax deduction for giving?

No. Using a deduction that exists is not a loophole, and declining it does not make the gift worth more to the person receiving it.

← Answers

Should I tithe from the business or personally?

Most owners give personally from what the business pays them, because that is where the money is actually theirs. Giving from the business itself means giving from money that may still owe tax, wages and suppliers. Neither is more spiritual than the other — but only one of them is unambiguously yours to give.

A bank balance is not profit

The account holds sales tax you collected and deductions withheld from payroll. Neither is yours. Owners who give from the balance rather than from what they have actually earned sometimes end up unable to make a remittance — which is not generosity, it is a debt moved somewhere less visible.

Where it is genuinely a business decision

Some owners give through the business deliberately — sponsoring something local, doing work at cost for a cause. That is a real choice with real tax consequences, and it is worth an accountant rather than a rule of thumb, because the treatment differs by structure and jurisdiction.

What nobody should tell you

That giving will make the business more profitable. It might not. Generosity framed as an investment with a return is not generosity, and an owner who gives expecting the money back has been sold something. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing when the return never comes.

The question underneath

Owners usually ask this when giving has started to feel like pressure rather than freedom. That is worth noticing on its own. A number arrived at from guilt tends not to last, and it is not what anyone was after.

Also asked

Is there a right percentage?: People will give you one confidently. The honest answer is that it is a conviction question rather than an accounting one, and a figure that ruins your ability to pay people is not more faithful for being larger.
Should I give if the business is losing money?: That is between you and your conscience, but be clear-eyed: giving from money you owe suppliers or staff moves the cost onto them. Their claim is real too.
Is it wrong to take a tax deduction for giving?: No. Using a deduction that exists is not a loophole, and declining it does not make the gift worth more to the person receiving it.

Written for your trade

This is the kind of thing Solomon works through with owners using their own numbers. See how it works →