It’s tax season, and scammers are paying to show up first when you search for IRS help.
🪦 Big Tech, meet Big Audit: The IRS’s free tax-filing tool got iced after just one full season due to limited adoption. Commissioner Billy Long says Direct File’s donezo. RIP to the rare government app that actually worked. IRS saw people being happy and said, “Yeah, that’s enough.”
$300,000 in 1883
On HBO’s The Gilded Age is about $9 million to $10 million today. Shoes cost $3, a dentist visit was 50 cents and a fully furnished 2,000 sq. ft. home went for $12K to $15K. The kicker? The mega-rich didn’t pay income tax (paywall link). If you did not see that series, stream it today. It’s fantastic!
Back it up, or risk losing it: Keep your family photos and important tax documents safe in the cloud, safe from fire, theft, floods and thieves. Total Drive has your back, and so do I. Just $18 for 10 TB is a no-brainer.
September 30
The last day to take delivery and still score the $7,500 EV tax credit. Tick, tick, tax. Forget order dates. The feds only care when it hits your driveway. So if you’re waiting eight to 10 weeks for delivery, as is the case for most Teslas, you’re cutting it real close. Better hope your dream car is already on a lot somewhere.
☁️ Back it up, or risk losing it: Keep your family photos and important tax documents safe in the cloud, safe from fire, theft, floods and thieves. Total Drive has your back, and so do I. Just $18 for 10 TB is a no-brainer.
Crypto tax panic: Crypto traders are freaking out after a huge spike in official letters from the IRS, some warnings, some with fines already baked in. Even people who’ve played by the rules say they’re getting flagged. If you’ve been diligently reporting your Fartcoin profits like a responsible adult, congrats: You’re now on the audit express.
200 eggs
That’s how many new mozzies a single female mosquito can whip up in a puddle. One inch of water, one day, and boom, you’ve got a bloodthirsty startup. Time to dump those flowerpot saucers and treat your birdbath like each drop raises your tax bracket.
🫀 Teen heart hacker: A 14-year-old in Texas built an AI-powered heart screening app that can detect cardiac issues in seven seconds with just a smartphone mic. Yes, seriously. It’s 96% accurate and already in clinical trials. App detects heart failure? I wonder if it can hear mine breaking during tax season.
$2.25
The nightly fee Hawaii’s tacking onto a $300 hotel stay, for climate karma points. It’s barely the price of a sad airport coffee, but multiplied by millions of tourists, it adds up, with some estimates as high as $100 million annually. Hawaii just became the first U.S. state to hit tourists with a climate tax: a 0.75% hike. Mahalo.
🪀 RIP, cheap stuff: The days of filling carts with $2 eyebrow stamp kits and glow-in-the-dark toilet lights might be numbered. Global trade crackdowns (like killing the “de minimis” tax loophole) are making it harder for cheap imports from places like Temu and SHEIN to flood U.S. markets. Goodbye, weird little gadgets. You served … some purpose.
💸 IRS scam link: It never stops. This time, if you Google how to get a business tax ID, the top results look official, but they’re not (paywall link). They’re ads from companies that charge you over $300 for something the IRS does for free. The real IRS site ends in .gov. Anything else? Fake.
Over $1 billion
In unclaimed tax refunds from 2021 will expire in four weeks. If you didn’t file your 2021 tax return, act fast or that money goes straight to the U.S. Treasury … forever. The average refund is $781, but some could get as much as $6,728! The deadline is April 15, 2025. See if you’re eligible on the IRS website.
It's (almost) always a scam
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