TGIF [DOT 12/4/24]

12/4/24 MegMegMcGee 22

Tax day is closing in on us here in the US. In case you’re wondering where I’ve been I’m super busy. Not an accountant, but I am accountant-adjacent.

RIP, where the P stands for Piss

O.J. Simpson, football great whose trial for murder became a phenomenon, dies at 76
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/04/11/oj-simpson-football-murder-trial-dead

This is worth reading

Alone in a bathroom: The fear and uncertainty of a post-Roe medication abortion
https://wapo.st/4asb551

Whoa

Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death in $27bn fraud case
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/vietnamese-property-tycoon-sentenced-to-death-in-27bn-case

Sprots!

Federal charges allege former interpreter stole $16m from Shohei Ohtani
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/11/federal-charges-allege-former-interpreter-stole-16m-from-shohei-ohtani

This is a fun story!

The 30-year hunt to find the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert bus: ‘My jaw was on the ground’
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/11/the-30-year-hunt-to-find-the-priscilla-queen-of-the-desert-bus-my-jaw-was-on-the-ground

QUACK

Have a great day!

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22 Comments

  1. A few people in my local Facebook group are asking for recommendations for people who prepare taxes. I’m like – y’all, it’s so late in the game that the only options available are people who shouldn’t be doing them.

    • You are absolutely correct. My firm only works with businesses, but we turn them away after, I think, January. If they’re so disorganized that they didn’t think of taxes until now, it’s going to take way more time to fix them than they can pay for. And we basically file extensions for all our clients. But people don’t realize that even if you file an extension, you have to pay your estimated taxes, and you can’t just spitball that number.

      • Additional note on late taxes: There’s a free tax service that operates through the library my wife works at. People are still coming up to the counter and asking for appointments. She’s like, those were all booked up back in February. Then they ask how they can get their taxes done. The library basically had to draft a statement saying that librarians are not allowed to assist with personal finances for legal reasons, or these people would drag their 1040s up to the reference desk and demand help filling them out.

    • OY. Not good.

      The thing is that, generally speaking, taxes are not that difficult for the average filer. But if you’re in one of the pots where it is, asking now is asking about three months too late to be of any help to you.

      (It’s also stupid and insane how the tax system works. The government knows the magic number and you have to do the math to hit that number or else you’re in trouble. Feels like maybe there’s a simpler way, in which the government tells you the number rather than making you jump through hoops to get it? But then I suppose it’s in our national interest or whatever to support Turbo Tax.)

      • The mania for using the tax code for policy adds to the problem. A lot of low income people benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit and child tax credits, but the rules aren’t simple in a lot of cases. The tax code mania is also a problem for a lot of people to get refundable credits in a lump sum instead of regular payments. Child tax credits were briefly distributed in part on a monthly basis due to the 2021 American Rescue Act, but that provision has expired and it may get even worse if Senate Republicans don’t stop blocking an extension of the credit.

        • Yup, research found that the number of children living in poverty in the U.S. was halved by those payments in 2021. HALVED.

          The GOP (and to be fair, Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema) didn’t care for that one bit, so we’ll probably never get that back.

      • His speech is bad enough, but his posture and movement suggest a stroke, or at least a TIA. He’s favoring his right side and that’s causing his jerky walking style. Way back in 2020 he was rushed to Walter Reed and then everybody in his administration started declaring “he didn’t have a stroke.” Which, considering their overall truthfulness, strongly suggests that he did. I think he’s had additional TIAs since then.

        It’s a testament to the incredible free health care he gets, that’s for sure. Anybody else would be bedridden.

      • …it’s the noise I hear in my head when I read the phrase “dutiful titter”…I figure if there’s a checklist of symptoms for cognitive dissonance it’d probably be on there…it’s a laugh that sounds like some part of your brain is recoiling in impotent horror?

        …so…expect you’d be right about that

  3. 25 years after the Columbine shooting which involved guns bought at a gun show:

    Biden administration finalizes rule to close ‘gun show loophole’ in effort to combat gun violence

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/11/politics/gun-show-loophole-rule-finalized-biden-admin/index.html

    In 2022 House Republicans voted against the bill which authorized the action 193-14.  Senate Republicans voted against it 35-15. The NRA, of course, opposed it.

    Elections have consequences. Both parties are not the same. Dysfunction is not a both sides issue.

      • That’s absolutely what’s going on, but the pundit class is allergic to saying that, so we only get references to vague terms like “dysfunction” “partisanship” and “gridlock” instead of more meaningful explanations.

        We get endless thinkpieces which strip away any grounding to real issues like gun violence in order to frame problems as ideological division in the abstract, without asking what it means when one party gets more concentrated in support for gun control backed by most Americans and the other party is increasingly talking about “Second Amendment solutions.”

         

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