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Hey ya'll, tax stuff for my husband Radasus and I is looking like it might near bankrupt us, so I've set up a gofundme to try and get some help. Super grateful to any help we can get during these rough times, love ya'll <3
https://gofund.me/3be46ec2
https://gofund.me/3be46ec2
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https://gofund.me/3be46ec2
https://gofund.me/3be46ec2
Posted using PostyBirb
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File Size 784.3 kB
Does IRS literally tax you into poverty? I'm trying to understand.
In my home country there is amount free from tax, which is well above poverty threshold over here. Even if you earn more than $15k (when you apply purchasing power parity) per person taxes only apply to amount over that limit.
In my home country there is amount free from tax, which is well above poverty threshold over here. Even if you earn more than $15k (when you apply purchasing power parity) per person taxes only apply to amount over that limit.
No; in the US, if you work a regular job for someone else, you have the choice to pay taxes up front or to pay all the year's taxes when you file your taxes four months after the end of the tax year (tax year ends December 31st, but you don't have to pay your taxes until April the following year).
If you pay up front, when you file your taxes, you usually get money back from the government because of "deductions". Deductions are things you spent your money on that the government says shouldn't count against your income. Everyone gets a standard deduction $15,750 no questions asked.
But you can also take deductions for taxes paid, interest on loans like your car, mortgage, student loans, etc... expenses for your job (like if your job requires you to have certain clothes or equipment), charitable donations, medical expenses, and more and more and more.
What CAN happen is that you might work for yourself or chosen not to withhold taxes, and not save that money to pay your taxes. Then you can find yourself in a jamb if you can't earn that tax money during that three months between the end of the year and when you have to pay your taxes.
If you pay up front, when you file your taxes, you usually get money back from the government because of "deductions". Deductions are things you spent your money on that the government says shouldn't count against your income. Everyone gets a standard deduction $15,750 no questions asked.
But you can also take deductions for taxes paid, interest on loans like your car, mortgage, student loans, etc... expenses for your job (like if your job requires you to have certain clothes or equipment), charitable donations, medical expenses, and more and more and more.
What CAN happen is that you might work for yourself or chosen not to withhold taxes, and not save that money to pay your taxes. Then you can find yourself in a jamb if you can't earn that tax money during that three months between the end of the year and when you have to pay your taxes.
I know everyone mentions "don't offer or accept friends and family for commissions, eat the fees so you don't get screwed" - but this is the other reason I always offered to pay that way. I feel like anything you don't make from a 9-5 shouldn't be taxed so I always want to see people not pay taxes on independent work/side hustles.
Alternatively - if there's a way for people to buy you necessities in place of paying directly for commissions, could that not be a slightly more legal way to get compensated for your work that doesn't invoke a taxable event? I mean shit, I'd be happy to buy someone a $100-200 grocery order instead of pay $100-200 cash knowing that food order might have 25-30% more buying power without taxes being involved.
Alternatively - if there's a way for people to buy you necessities in place of paying directly for commissions, could that not be a slightly more legal way to get compensated for your work that doesn't invoke a taxable event? I mean shit, I'd be happy to buy someone a $100-200 grocery order instead of pay $100-200 cash knowing that food order might have 25-30% more buying power without taxes being involved.
As someone who recently was having a conversation about this stuff, I believe this would still fall under the whole "barter exchanges are still taxable thing" and you'd need to treat the value of the groceries as income.
As to whether or not that's enforcable, trackabe, or is there as a general thing that most people don't really follow, I don't know.
Been trying to look into tax stuff for my own potential commission work and stuff is really fucking confusing.
As to whether or not that's enforcable, trackabe, or is there as a general thing that most people don't really follow, I don't know.
Been trying to look into tax stuff for my own potential commission work and stuff is really fucking confusing.
Like...I get that. But you kind of covered the point -
>as to whether or not that's enforceable, trackable...
A wise old man once told me, "back in my day, it was the man's job to cheat, and the woman's job to catch him."
I believe this era's parallel: "It is the citizen's job to cheat (on their taxes), and the government's job to try and catch them."
It comes down to what can be proven. For example: If someone wins $10,000 on a single lottery ticket, that's getting taxed, that's getting declared, you're not directly getting out of that as income. If someone wins $500 on twenty different lottery tickets and nets $10,000, each individual ticket on its own is not a taxable event. While one -should-, technically, report this income, your odds of being popped for this and facing legal consequences are between jack and shit.
The same goes for PayPal vs. barter or other non-declared compensation. Under the unfortunate changes to tax law that occurred with the reform of the 1099-K process, instead of being able to take 199 transactions or under $20,000 and not declare a penny of that income, it's much harder to get around it. If you're a full time artist, you've got to do some legwork to evade taxes. That said, I believe that it's ethically the correct decision to do so...it's one thing if that money's being used responsibly by the government, like for public health care or education or generally taking care of the citizens well, but when you have a situation like... *gestures broadly at the USA* it is always correct for the middle and lower class to do everything they can to put in as little towards what is currently happening as possible.
While being a professional freelancer of any sort likely means you're not fully dodging the tax man, if one, say, took half of their money in direct cash payments and paid taxes, and the other half in barter, then they appear on paper to be a good tax-paying citizen yet they are heavily lowering their tax rate.
The IRS is woefully underfunded and the current powers that be are slashing funding for them, knowing that it's their party that benefits when there's less regulation or looking into their income. On that same note, there's less looking into OUR income as well.
I will continue to attempt to pay people in non-taxable ways as much as possible knowing my buying power, and thus their work, are both much more valuable than a standard commission.
>as to whether or not that's enforceable, trackable...
A wise old man once told me, "back in my day, it was the man's job to cheat, and the woman's job to catch him."
I believe this era's parallel: "It is the citizen's job to cheat (on their taxes), and the government's job to try and catch them."
It comes down to what can be proven. For example: If someone wins $10,000 on a single lottery ticket, that's getting taxed, that's getting declared, you're not directly getting out of that as income. If someone wins $500 on twenty different lottery tickets and nets $10,000, each individual ticket on its own is not a taxable event. While one -should-, technically, report this income, your odds of being popped for this and facing legal consequences are between jack and shit.
The same goes for PayPal vs. barter or other non-declared compensation. Under the unfortunate changes to tax law that occurred with the reform of the 1099-K process, instead of being able to take 199 transactions or under $20,000 and not declare a penny of that income, it's much harder to get around it. If you're a full time artist, you've got to do some legwork to evade taxes. That said, I believe that it's ethically the correct decision to do so...it's one thing if that money's being used responsibly by the government, like for public health care or education or generally taking care of the citizens well, but when you have a situation like... *gestures broadly at the USA* it is always correct for the middle and lower class to do everything they can to put in as little towards what is currently happening as possible.
While being a professional freelancer of any sort likely means you're not fully dodging the tax man, if one, say, took half of their money in direct cash payments and paid taxes, and the other half in barter, then they appear on paper to be a good tax-paying citizen yet they are heavily lowering their tax rate.
The IRS is woefully underfunded and the current powers that be are slashing funding for them, knowing that it's their party that benefits when there's less regulation or looking into their income. On that same note, there's less looking into OUR income as well.
I will continue to attempt to pay people in non-taxable ways as much as possible knowing my buying power, and thus their work, are both much more valuable than a standard commission.
"Tell me you're a Libertarian without telling me a Libertarian" xD
So pretty much all this advice and postulation is bunk.
If you suddenly find yourself with $10,000 in your bank account from a series of deposits over a short period, the bank is required to report this under the same laws you're saying they wouldn't; the law isn't "any deposit over $9,999.99 will.be reported to the IRS," it's more nuanced than that.
If you have ONE deposit, once in a blue moon, that is under the $10k, the bank is still going to keep track of it, but they're not going to report it. But if you're getting suspicious deposits that flagrantly look like evasion of that "rule", they are required to report it or can be held in suspicion of collusion of tax evasion or whatever the banking equivalent of that is (those regulations are handled by different people).
Side hustles are still income. Is it okay if Elon Musk worked his 9-5 at minimum wage but his other 40+ hours he puts in to his other endeavors be tax free? I think we can all agree; no. And before you say it; yeah, I get it, the rich are tax differently than the rest of us poors, but good luck figuring out how to write laws based on the idea of hyper taxing the rich while "under" taxing the poor.
"It's good not to pay taxes because I don't agree with what the government is doing" is not a moral argument; it's a lamp shade of just not wanting to pay taxes. The rest of your argument is about not wanting to pay taxes. You can't just hang a "protest" sign in it after the fact.
Despite the pop-ideation, most taxes do go to benefiting the general populace. A full 60-70% of the feds budget in 2024 went to social services like Social Security, Unemployment, Medicare/Medicaid, Food Stamps, etc... It is a well debunked myth that the DoD gets the most; in 2024 the DoD budget was less than $850 billion dollars (still huge), but the US federal budget was $6,800 billion, making DoD about 12% of the budget.
So, morally, not paying your taxes, if you're opposed to DoD spending, is only SUBJECTIVELY 12% ethical based on your justification.
So pretty much all this advice and postulation is bunk.
If you suddenly find yourself with $10,000 in your bank account from a series of deposits over a short period, the bank is required to report this under the same laws you're saying they wouldn't; the law isn't "any deposit over $9,999.99 will.be reported to the IRS," it's more nuanced than that.
If you have ONE deposit, once in a blue moon, that is under the $10k, the bank is still going to keep track of it, but they're not going to report it. But if you're getting suspicious deposits that flagrantly look like evasion of that "rule", they are required to report it or can be held in suspicion of collusion of tax evasion or whatever the banking equivalent of that is (those regulations are handled by different people).
Side hustles are still income. Is it okay if Elon Musk worked his 9-5 at minimum wage but his other 40+ hours he puts in to his other endeavors be tax free? I think we can all agree; no. And before you say it; yeah, I get it, the rich are tax differently than the rest of us poors, but good luck figuring out how to write laws based on the idea of hyper taxing the rich while "under" taxing the poor.
"It's good not to pay taxes because I don't agree with what the government is doing" is not a moral argument; it's a lamp shade of just not wanting to pay taxes. The rest of your argument is about not wanting to pay taxes. You can't just hang a "protest" sign in it after the fact.
Despite the pop-ideation, most taxes do go to benefiting the general populace. A full 60-70% of the feds budget in 2024 went to social services like Social Security, Unemployment, Medicare/Medicaid, Food Stamps, etc... It is a well debunked myth that the DoD gets the most; in 2024 the DoD budget was less than $850 billion dollars (still huge), but the US federal budget was $6,800 billion, making DoD about 12% of the budget.
So, morally, not paying your taxes, if you're opposed to DoD spending, is only SUBJECTIVELY 12% ethical based on your justification.
Realistically if America just dropped its income tax and put a flat 10% sales tax on all non-essential items (examples being alcohol, sweets, entertainment systems, and so on) that would be more than enough to fund the government. Things would be slightly more expensive but we'd be making way more money per year to make up the difference
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