My liberal friends are sending me articles fretting about the FBI being purged of experienced agents and I can't muster a fuck to give about people who devoted their lives to repression and empire.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
I went out to smoke at a horror convention and all of the fucking horror clowns came out for their smoke break and now I am entirely surrounded by clowns. They are on break and they are still honking their squeakers in an unholy chorus. They do the clown voices even when they ask each other to borrow a lighter. I don't take photos without people's consent and I don't wish to draw the attention of the over a dozen clowns so no photos for proof.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Seeing lots of paywalled articles linked on here, more than usual given the political circumstances. Remember to use the 12 foot ladder or other similar tools to skip the paywalls.
https://12ft.io/
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Stephen King stories are kinda nuts. This dude will just be like "what if the police investigated the boogeyman" and write a whole book about it.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
I spend a lot more than the average amount of time looking at public financial records of nonprofits (form 990). A ton of nonprofits with 501c3 status are functionally money laundering in my opinion. Not all of them for sure but I've seen a shocking amount of them where the contributions they receive are largely spent on executive salaries, acquiring assets, and other luxuries that do not go towards the intended purpose of the charity (expensive fundraising galas, travel, meals, vehicles etc). Many rich people give large donations to charities that they are involved in, then write off that donation in their taxes, then travel and dine on the charities expense. This shit is rampant. Before you donate money to a charity, look up their form 990 and see how they're spending the money you give them. Make sure to check the Schedule J for officer and director salaries.
Money you donate to "legitimate" charities can be deducted from your taxes, but money you give directly to mutual aid groups or to individuals in need cannot be. This is a way for the state to control and influence who you are allowed to share with, and encourage donations to organizations that conform to the state's rules and discourage direct aid in your community or towards radical political efforts. The legitimized middle man is made mandatory or you forfeit the tax deduction.
This makes it extremely difficult for mutual aid groups to collect large donations. The people making large donations don't want to forfeit the tax deduction, and the individuals collecting the donations outside of a legitimized financial entity are liable to have those donations taxed as their own income.
Some radical nonprofits sponsor other groups without tax ID status, which rules. They use their tax exempt status to receive larger donations of behalf of other grassroots groups, then give it back to them as grants to be spent how the non status group intends. This is the best model I've seen for getting around this problem. But it is not without risk as seen in the Stop Cop City RICO cases.
If you guys like this kinda stuff maybe next time I'll talk about how politicians writing books is another way to launder money and get around campaign finance laws.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
A bunch of people followed me when I posted that thread with tax advice today so I figured it's a good time to talk about the way that the state uses financial bureaucracy and the concept of "legitimacy" to stifle mutual aid and direct action.
So mutual aid and direct action groups like harm reduction collectives, food not bombs, jail support and other sorts of groups that gather donations and share resources with vulnerable people usually do not have 501C status, which means they are not beholden to the rules and limitations that 501C status nonprofits must conform to. It also means those groups can encounter problems as they grow larger in their reach.
A 501c3 non profit can accept large donations and scale up without incurring tax penalties, but 501c3s are limited in the political activities they can participate in, they can also risk losing tax exempt status for operating outside of their intended scope. Some radical and anarchist organizations obtain 501c3 status in order to scale and operate in certain areas of work that small groups of individuals cannot operate in as easily, but it comes with limitations and risk. For example, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund was charged with charities fraud in relation to some reimbursements it allegedly gave to activists involved in the Stop Cop City campaign.
A mutual aid group without tax exempt status that receives too many financial donations may run into a very different problem, whoever is administrating the bank account, patreon, venmo etc for the group may end up being taxed on the donations the group receives, and they may be locked out of transferring donated money on certain platforms if they do not provide a tax ID number. This is a problem, say your affinity group collects $10,000 in a year and buys bus passes and motel stays for unhoused people, but then the person on the venmo gets a 1099 showing the $10k as their own income, and now owes additional taxes on it. I have seen stuff like this happen several times, especially during and after the 2020 uprisings.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
When you share resources with your neighbors during natural disasters, sometimes they bring you a tray of their family recipe baked Mac and cheese once the power comes back on.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Just opened my @pmpress package. Every month they send me at least 3 of their newly published books because I have the Friends of PM Press subscription. Check out these new additions to the library!
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Another great reason to use cash as often as possible in your local economy:
-Cash doesn't ask about your legal status in the United States.
-Cash can be received and then spent by individuals without a SSN or ITIN (social security number or individual taxpayer identification number)
-Cash creates less or no paper trail on immigration investigations
This is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer. I am a person who detests the government and wishes to undermine it's efforts to track and investigate people.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
I know it's not a very common form of mutual aid but I do taxes for free for radicals and anarchists in California. Usually income taxes but I'll also help with small businesses too if they aren't ethically shitty.
Taxes are scary and complicated on purpose and I want you to get your money back. Feel free to tag me on questions or send me a private toot for my email if you're confused and need help.
It's gross that taxes have been made so complicated as to create an entire industry of tax professionals that wouldn't exist otherwise. I enjoy undermining that industry by making tax knowledge free.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
More free advice from your anarchist accountant:
Use cash. The government doesn't need to know about your purchases, especially on money spent in local economies, at farmers markets, craft fairs and stuff. Tip in cash as often as possible. Your waitress would rather stick cash in her pocket than get her tips on her paycheck anyways, and tips given in cash are usually not reported on taxes so more of the money makes it to the employee and not to the government.
It is worth the extra time to remember to pull out cash before going to bookfairs, conventions, farmers markets, art walks and fundraisers. Your community will appreciate you for making the effort to pay in cash.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Free tax advice from your anarchist accountant:
(USA federal income tax)(1099 NEC) If you are self employed and work from home, measure the square footage of your 'home office' (or whatever your workspace is), find out what percentage it is of the square footage of your house, and deduct that percentage of your annual rent and all of your utility bills for the year from your taxes as a work expense.
(USA federal income tax) If you are taking classes check and see if you qualify for the AOTC tax credit. You don't need a form 1098T from your school necessarily, (most schools will not make these available to you until Jan 31st), but you can claim up to a $2,500 deduction on tuition expenses, text book expenses, and other school supplies like computers.
(USA general advice) If you are paying someone for a product on venmo, no you're not. Use like a pizza emoji or something in the description and never check the box that says you're purchasing a product. That's extremely rude and tells venmo to report the money you gave that person as taxable income. So rude, don't do it, especially at like fundraisers, bake sales and shit like that.
Fuck turbo tax. Use Freetaxusa if doing your own taxes. (free USA federal income tax filing and state tax filing for like $20)
Every tax dollar you manage to get back in refunds is a dollar you took away from the American war machine.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
23 days into 2025 and I've had electricity for 6 of them.
I love camping but I would like to use my camping equipment outside not in my own house.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
All the J6ers were released by presidential pardon. Every major social media platform has bent the knee to trump.
Good thing we have a functional, healthy anti fascist movement that isn't constantly beefing over dumb shit.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
The high winds started back up again and the power is back off. We're 20 days into the year and 15 of them have been without power. We are not rural or off grid, we're in a suburb in one of the most populated areas of the country.
I'm reflecting on the feelings of powerlessness, knowing what the problems are and knowing that no one "in charge" is going to do anything to fix them. The power infrastructure could be upgraded and made safer, but that cuts into profits. The natural areas could be cleared of flammable invasive plants and restored with native plants and controlled with traditional controlled burning practices, but who is going to pay for that?
I have known for a long time that we're on our own, but knowing doesn't assauge the dread much. The dread only fades with action taken with our own hands. If you know no one in charge is coming to save you, you're left with the option that you and your communities must save themselves. This is true for my neighborhood and this is true for everything else that's already happening and the worse things that are coming.
If you're new to this idea, and realizing no one is going to save you, now is the time to figure out what you can do with your own hands and hearts to solve the problems no one in charge wants to.
For my household we're tossing the generator cord over the fence again to share what we have. We'll check in with neighbors, store medicines, run errands for ice. There's nothing else to do but figure out what we can do.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
While I have no intention of downloading Rednote I have been enjoying hearing about the cultural exchange between Americans and Chinese citizens. I saw a video of an American being surprised to find out that many Chinese people drink hot water instead of iced. When I was a kid I thought it was odd that my step grandma ordered hot water every time we went to a restaurant. She said it was healthier. While I can't speak to the health benefits at all I can say it's a nice habit I picked up from having Chinese members of our blended family.
It's also really funny to see posts about Chinese users expressing shock to find out that Americans have to pay for ambulances and assuming their government had lied about that to make the US look bad.
You'll never catch me simping for the CCP, my grandma fled China for a reason, but people are not their governments and talking to each other across borders can erode state propaganda
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
There is a gen Z employee who works at the deli at my grocery store and every single time I see him he tries to rizz me up. I'm not annoyed by it because he always asks me for music recommendations and I find it funny to always give him very strange ones. He still asks every time. He usually follows up later to let me know what he thought of it.
"hey what music do you listen to"
"this week mostly black metal"
"can you recommend me a song?"
"sure, there's one by this Columbian folk punk band"
I had planned to recommend Bounce music to him next but today he asked me if I liked Edgar Allen Poe and told me he likes to read it when he feels sad. I said "didn't he marry his cousin?"
"yeah, well, different times I guess"
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Hey come find me on @pixelfed
I will post sticker designs and stuff
[#]fuckmeta
I need people to show me how to do alttext and how to edit my profile on the app. I can't add a bio for some reason.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
The fact that all the tools in my household are mine feels pretty cool, like I feel like a very capable independent adult woman. But now I completely understand why my dad would get so annoyed when we used his tools because when my roommates need a tool they just dump out my tool bags and leave everything all over the place.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
I was texting with my landlord about the power outages and the fires. She told me her whole family was from Altadena. I know most of my followers hate landlords and I usually do too, but this woman rented us her parent's former home well below market rate, leaves us alone and fixes things when we ask. She's a sweet woman. During 2020 she gave us a 50% discount on 2 months of rent because half our household lost their jobs. She's the one landlord I don't hate.
I'm reading a lot of posts about Altadena being the first middle class Black neighborhood in California, and the effects of all that generational wealth in a historically Black neighborhood burning down. My landlord is an older Black woman who was left a few houses as her parents and relatives got old and passed away. She sold 2, rented ours to us, and lives comfortably doing things like zumba classes and taking community college courses to keep busy. She didn't lose anyone or any homes in the fire, but her childhood home and the schools she went to are all gone. I told her SCE is being sued for starting the fire, we both agreed that we hope SCE goes bankrupt for their negligence.
The below list is the gofundmes for the Black families of Altadena who lost their homes. Please consider picking one and donating.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pK5omSsD4KGhjEHCVgcVw-rd4FZP9haoijEx1mSAm5c/htmlview
This link is a spreadsheet of all the gofundme fundraisers of all the families that lost everything in the fire.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1zqtJlwtfZEpeb8bfu-AZizCrCnVZtuz3O6UuDFE8frU/htmlview
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
=> This profile with reblog | Go to temerity@kolektiva.social account This content has been proxied by September (3851b).Proxy Information
text/gemini