• TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
    1193·
    11 months ago

    As someone who has to pay back half of my COVID relief but so many rich people and corporations don’t- I feel this deep in my black soul.

    $7000 on top of my student loans👍

    • Striker@lemmy.worldOP
      401·
      11 months ago

      Quick question? How come you gave to pay half of it back? On what grounds?

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
      2779·
      11 months ago

      I made a $10,000 payment to close out mine a few years ago. Turns out I was right that Biden wouldn’t do anything meaningful on that front, and I was tired of being gouged on the interest.

      I still support cancellation though. I wish we were spending 200 billion on that instead of another country’s war.

      • BossDj@lemm.ee
        919·
        11 months ago

        You should take a second to look up who is in the way of that happening, because it sure as hell isn’t Biden.

      • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
        125·
        11 months ago

        Dude you know they were referring to covid relief and not LOANS. “On what grounds” they said, obviously that’s not referring to paying back a loan and instead on what grounds would you have to pay back RELIEF funds.

          • TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
            31·
            11 months ago

            Because the federal student loan plan is where I got the loan, so now I owe the big G like $15,000 instead of just under $8000.

            I never should have had to pay back relief funds. I don’t dispute my loans, though they should be inteest free.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
      37·
      11 months ago

      “Why do we have to explain a $880,000 missile that bombed a villiage full of brown people? Or a $72,000 drone made out of consumer parts but the company is owned by my cousin?”

  • phorq@lemmy.mlEspañol
    42·
    11 months ago

    They know exactly where it went. Operation Freedom, abbreviated OF on the ledger…

  • gardylou@lemmy.world
    5519·
    11 months ago

    That ‘we don’t know where 2 trillion went’ is a myth–that number represents accounting reconciliations between their myriad of different archaic and highly secured systems. It doesn’t mean that actual resources are missing or can’t be accounted for.

      • ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        11 months ago

        Yeah that money came from Iraqi oil sales. And seems to have likely gone to (mostly) Iraqi contractors and Iraq government. It was literally their money going back to them. The accounting was not well documented. But once again, the money isn’t missing. And it definitely wasn’t money collected by the IRS from taxpayers.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      9·
      11 months ago

      It’s an infestation of unconnected dots that could hide countless incidents of corruption. Were we to connect them all and compute the sum of adjustments, the discrepancy could be smaller or greater, exponentially.

      The problem is our government favors the DoD like a prodigal son and is not eager to facilitate an audit that might reveal trillions in corruption. It already doesn’t like the published records of trullions in bad investments while leaving our troopers with insufficient armor and a DVA that leaves IED victims to the streets and the elements.

      So until I see otherwise, I’m going to assume that’s trillions going to defense contractor lobbyist junkets and bribes.

    • bobthened@feddit.uk
      91·
      11 months ago

      That doesn’t really matter though. The point still stands regardless of if it’s explained by money literally disappearing into a hole or huge rounding errors and inefficiencies in their accounting systems.

      They are still allowed much much more leniency with much larger amounts of money (aren’t they aren’t ever properly held to account for it) than regular people are allowed with comparatively tiny amounts of money.

    • Knightfox@lemmy.oneEnglish
      61·
      11 months ago

      A big part of it is reporting requirements, despite what some people think different portions of the government have different requirements. The reason a person gets inquiries about Venmo payments is because the IRS requires corporations to report that information to them and it’s a mainly automated process.

      Regulatory reporting requirements of Corporations to the IRS can’t be copy pasted onto Pentagon spending reconciliation.

      A better comparison, that is still not accurate, would be a cash business that has to report income to the IRS and has trouble getting granular details organized.

      Complaints about transparency and accountability on the Pentagon budget are a valid complaint, but this is a poor example.

      • Crashumbc@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Cash business is a great example, considering 99% under-report their income by a huge amount…

  • ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    281·
    11 months ago

    Ha you can’t even receive $50 of digital payments (venmo, cashapp, whatever) without passing an invasive KYC check. Fuck big brother.

  • Thermal_shocked@lemmy.world
    241·
    11 months ago

    I’m not reporting that someone sent me their share of the mortgage through an app rather than cash. Get fucked.

      • jetsetdorito@lemm.ee
        41·
        11 months ago

        If you’re paying a mortgage and someone is paying you for one of the rooms, as far as the IRS is concerned that is income 🙁

        • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          4·
          11 months ago

          If they do, for any transaction including personal, they are breaking tax laws so… I really don’t think that’s the case at all…

          I had the pleasure of teaching people about the 1099-k used to report that from a business standpoint (which anyone needing to report would be using). So while I don’t know a lot, I do know that specific thing about that specific form.

          I’m not a tax professional, but this is literally the first tax season these companies are being subjected to the new rules, so erring on the side of caution makes sense for them, but ultimately if they report that based on personal transactions, they are violating IRS regulations, and no company wants to do that if they can avoid it.

          Prior to that, the 1099-k rules were really wild, something like a minimum number of transactions plus a minimum amount of income through that specific source. It led to a lot of untraceable transactions in lieu of normal transactions and it was hard to follow up with, plus a lot of people who had no clue they needed to file the form. This is literally just their way of shoring up the rules to make it enforceable for them as an underfunded agency.

        • Davidjjdj@lemmy.world
          2·
          11 months ago

          Does it? It wasn’t an issue for me until I got paid and they accidently selected “payment”. At which point I had no choice, venmo forced me to give my tax information before they would cancel, or return the money that was sent to me.

          They will still be reporting that transaction and there is nothing I can do.

      • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
        22·
        11 months ago

        Yeah you do it’s still income…

        If someone else is paying you for your mortgage anything past the interest is considered income since it’s paying down the principal.

        And you don’t have to worry about reporting it venmo will already do that for you :/

  • scottywh@lemmy.world
    172·
    11 months ago

    I’m honestly pretty upset about having to report “income” on reselling random old used shit out of my closet and garage on ebay all of the sudden.

    Taxes have fucking been paid. This shit is not the same as wages and shouldn’t be treated the same.

    • time_fo_that@lemmy.world
      5·
      11 months ago

      Good, this is going to be so annoying. If I send my roommate $1000 to cover my portion of rent (which I used to do every month at my last place) it’s not fucking “income” for them lol.

  • Emerald@lemmy.world
    5·
    11 months ago

    Image Transcription: Twitter Post

    Brave New Films, @bravenewfilms

    The Pentagon: we don’t know where $2 trillion went.

    The IRS: you sent $600 on Venmo. Don’t forget to report it.

  • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    I just got a notification from eBay that said they won’t release my money from selling until I provide them with my SSN or tax ID because I’ve sold over $600 this year. It was probably like a total of $602 because I rarely ever sell anything on there except old tech stuff when I really need money.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
      284·
      11 months ago

      It’s not about taxes, not really. It’s the hypocritical and one-sided scrutiny of citizens vs corporations and the military industrial complex.

      • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
        1116·
        11 months ago

        It’s still wrong. Even when not about taxes directly.

        It demonstrates either ignorance about government responsibilities, ignorance about GAP, or combination of both.

        People passing this around should do better to come up with an applicable comparison regarding oversight the IRS has. There are many examples.

        But the IRS isn’t the GAO. Auditing the DoD will never be something the IRS handles.

        • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
          207·
          11 months ago

          Ok, so where is the missing 2 trillion dollars? You seem to be missing the forest for the trees. It’s about hypocrisy, not the highly specific functioning of an inept governmental office.

          Edit: I’ll spell out the hypocrisy. What happens when you fail an audit? You’re forced to pay back the money. What happens when the Pentagon fails their audits? Literally nothing. The 1990 bill has no penalties for failing, none.

          • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
            915·
            11 months ago

            Ok, so where is the missing 2 trillion dollars?

            That’s for the GAO to figure out. Not me or the IRS. The IRS is already understaffed and funded as is. And both the IRS and DoD are Executive branch. That’s why the audit authority rests with Congress to provide checks against Executive authority.

            You seem to be missing the forest for the trees. It’s about hypocrisy, not the highly specific functioning of an inept governmental office.

            If it’s only about hypocrisy there are still better examples. The DoD doesn’t generate revenue so there isn’t anything to tax. Meaning the IRS shouldn’t be involved.

            If to call out the DoD make it about how they expect this level of accountability with their own suppliers and staff that they’re failing. If to call out the IRS it could go with numerous options unrelated to the DoD.

            As is it doesn’t make sense.

            • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
              115·
              11 months ago

              The DoD doesn’t generate revenue so there isn’t anything to tax. Meaning the IRS shouldn’t be involved.

              I don’t know how else to say this. It’s not about specific agencies applying what penalty or anything else like that. It’s the fact that there are no penalties for the DoD for failing an audit.

              • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
                414·
                11 months ago

                So about my prior comment on ignorance of the government. Congress owns making penalties happen. As stated, this post suggests it’s the IRS not doing their job.

                You’re welcome to come up with an alternative interpretation of what’s plainly stated. But we can do better than misrepresenting the issues this post does a crappy job of bringing up.

                • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
                  83·
                  11 months ago

                  Ok, I see where you’re coming from. I looked past the error to see the point of what they meant. You’re stating the obvious that the IRS isn’t involved with government agency audits. We’re arguing about 2 different things.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
      113·
      11 months ago

      My reading: Uncle Sam’s Ledger Logic:

      $2 trillion vanishes into the Pentagon void? “Oops, slipped through the cracks!”

      Your $600 Venmo transfer? “Caught you red-handed! Now, where’s our cut?”

    • paultimate14@lemmy.world
      97·
      11 months ago

      On the other side of the meme, why shouldn’t money obtained via a 3rd party platform need to be reported to the IRS? I don’t understand the complaint.

      Is your business suddenly special and tax-exempt just because you sell your custom knick-knacks on Craigslist on or accept venmo for your at-home dog grooming service or whatever?

      • TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz
        111·
        11 months ago

        The joke is that they hold taxpayers to ridiculously high standards, to the point where the concept of $600 of unreported income is something the government will harass you for. While they can just accept billions of their own spending going unaccounted for without a second thought.

        And yes someone running their own small business struggling to survive is not worth taxing. Even if they were paying “what they owe” they would contribute nearly nothing compared to the rich people. And suffer far more for it.