(former) tax lawyer here. This is definitely not possible, at least in the US. They could only take a deduction if they first recognized the donation as income — which would defeat the purpose and also be a very odd way of characterizing the transaction.

How? It's not their money in the first place so collecting deducting it just goes back to zero.

Does the money go directly to a charity? Or do they collect it on behalf of a charity and then donate it to said after end of business (or 4-8 weeks)? Electronic transactions are abused far more by companies/corporations compared to kids picking up a water jug of pennies.

I'm sure they collect it for a while, but that doesn't mean they can declare it as their own for tax purposes.

I'm not so sure about that. Citation? I believe in general (at least in the US), it would be really unusual for a corporation to get a tax break for money that was never theirs. The chief factor in how corporations are taxed in the US is their domestic profit. Whether you donate to charity or light it on fire, it shouldn't matter at all to the corporation's profit, and therefore it shouldn't matter to their taxes.

I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, though. Let me know.