Gora Girl @oddsandends-artshop - Tumblr Blog

Posts

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to our blog!

This is a space for our small art shop

Creators include:

Gora - she/him, digital artist, main point of contact

Orion- he/him, digital artist and painter

Heres the links for our store fronts and other socials!

tinygalaxykid

My zine on vending for the first time! I wish I hadn't waited so long to start and now hopefully others can start too!

#taking notes

keithmosher2

Can't Have Nice Things

The Ketamine King Musk has shutdown the IRS's Free Tax Filing system.

Of all the things a government could off, a way to Freely calculate and file your taxes seems like a good one. But the richest man in the world thinks we shouldn't have that.

The online tax filing option on the IRS website had a strong bipartisan 76% approval rating from registered voters.

truth-has-a-liberal-bias

President Trump’s “special government employee,” Elon Musk, announced on Monday that he had dissolved the Internal Revenue Service’s free file program—suggesting that he effectively fired the staff who worked on the popular program.

The billionaire revealed that he “deleted” the group of individuals who oversaw the system that allows Americans to easily file their taxes for free on the IRS website. The IRS-run free and simplified tax filing option had 76% approval from registered voters based on a 2023 poll by Navigator. [...]

elfwreck

If you have the time to burn, and a bit of financial cushion -

File your taxes by hand. Fill out the forms with a pen. Overpay by about $50. (You will eventually get that back. It is likely to take several months.)

It will take longer to get any refund you're due. But I promise you the entire federal bureaucracy has been cutting as many corners as they can for as many years as they can, and the current set is going to cut even more corners, and...

they don't have the staff on hand to process a huge number of paper claims anymore. They expect everything that came in digitally last year, to continue to be filed digitally. And they expect more digital filings every year. They've planned for that. They've staffed for that.

One of the only acts of protest we have available is "comply, but slowly."

File on paper if you can.

If you have the software to file digitally because doing the math & forms is such a nightmare for you?

If you're up for it: Print the final form, and then fill out a new blank form by hand. With your lousy handwriting. Send it in the post, by mail.

Does that stop them? No, but every bit of sand we can throw in the gears slows them down and pulls resources away from the other horrific rights violations they're trying to codify into law.

katjohnadams

transcyberism

You likely still do not have to pay an accountant even if the IRS's Direct File service goes down because Free File will still work.

While Direct File is an IRS-hosted program, there is also Free File, which is government-subsidized and hosted by third parties:

You need to use THESE SPECIFIC LINKS in order to access the Free File programs, fyi - they are hosted by tax preparers who also often order paid services which may have deceptive names like "TurboTax Free" that make them sound like they don't cost anything, so be sure to only use the IRS links. Don't just Google them, you will not find what you're looking for.

Here's an archive link in case they take down the Free File page. (You may have to manually cut out the web.archive.org part of the URL to use the links.)

It is not possible for Elon Musk to access these programs directly because they are not hosted on government servers. You are eligible for Free File for your federal taxes if you make less than $84k, as well as for your state taxes if you make less than $48k, as well as some other situations such as if you are active-duty military or if you live in certain states (for your state return).

If you want to throw sand into the works and file these as paper forms instead of e-filing, you absolutely can do that by printing them out after completing the program, but PLEASE do not pay a tax preparer if you are eligible for Free File!!! It's a ripoff!!!!!!!!

Direct File is a great program that saves the government money (they do not have to pay third parties if they keep the program in-house) and helps protect taxpayer data security, but you DO NOT need to pay an accountant or risk filling out your return incorrectly just because it goes down.

#taking notes

Check it out here (there's also a link in my pinned post but this one is direct)

#my first run is only 25 books #if it does well I'll print more #my art #kids cook #childrens books #childrens illustration #picture book #independent author #cute animals #cottage core #story #book #illustration #self publishing

some of but certainly not all of the sketch commissions i did at fcc this weekend

#thanks to everyone who stoped by #my art #sketches #art commisions #artist alley

New prints in the shop for spooky season

#my art #digital illustration #art print #prints #decor #halloween #halloween art #spooky season #spooky aesthetic #moth #queer art #art for sale #fall aesthetic #fall art

highways-are-liminal-spaces

Hello! I've been looking at setting up an Inprnt shop myself, but I'm unfamiliar with the platform from an artist's perspective. I was wondering if you'd be willing to let me know what you think about it? Any pros or cons you've found while using it?

Totally, here's a quick pros-cons rundown from my experience:

Pros:

Unbelievably easy to use for uploads

All the printing and shipping work is done very smoothly on their end

Firmly anti-AI and anti-plagiarism, with fast responses to reporting and also backstops against false-positive AI detection

Higher default percentage payout (30%) than many competitors

Very reasonably priced for higher quality prints. I've used the site for a canvas print of one of my own photos as well as for some posters of other artists' work, and everything has been really professional

Artist's prices for your own work (again, I got a really nice canvas print of one of my bears that's hanging in the living room of my dad's house)

Easily allows you to place orders for other shops on the site using your balance from your sales

Cons:

Custom crops are not supported

Payout percentage is still very low relatively speaking (obviously worth it to me for the amount of time/work, but it wouldn't be where I'd sell digital art, for example)

Setting up withdrawals is very annoying and you can only do it at over $100 without filling out a special request, which is limited annually. Given the relatively low price of most sales, this may take a long time for a small shop and sucks when $80 is sitting there and would make a huge difference in your life.

No ability to batch upload work

Relatively difficult to internally promote your work on (again, I don't put that much time into the site, but if I were a full-time artist, I would want more from it)

#reference