Comment on "You can't have our trash because we don't have a way to charge you for it"
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 days agoAnother factor to add is that major retailers use anything they throw away as a tax write-off “loss” and they are therefore extremely cagey about giving any of it away for any reason, even to employees, I guess because if this is found out it could have some kind of implications, I dunno.
My nephew works for Target and apparently they do this. He tells me a manager will stand there and watch them crushing perfectly good floor model TV’s and other electronics in the trash compactor so he can sign off that they did it and none of those items were used for any beneficial purpose whatsoever, because weaseling out of $0.02 in taxes is apparently more worthwhile to corporate than giving a dedicated employee a new but slightly scuffed TV they were going to throw away anyway.
It’s positively infuriating. I’m sure the perishable goods/food sector is even worse.
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Giving these items to employees could be considered part of their compensation package, like gift cards. Those have to be appropriately recorded and taxed.
FWIW, a lot of these places now send damaged/surplus/whatever items to a salvage company, who then pays the original retailer “fire sale” prices. These items are usually auctioned off locally for a fraction of MSRP.
Same for many returned items, BTW. There’s a local auction site that runs like eBay, but it’s overwhelmingly Amazon returns.