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stillness-in-green · 6 years ago

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i realized mika's the only one of the tekkadan boys to have a specific thing he wants to do outside of fighting- farming- which is kinda ironic considering he's been called aimless. so do you have any ideas of what the other boys could/would like to do as a profession/career outside of fighting (not counting what they actually ended up doing in the epilogue)? doesn't have to be for everybody, just for whoever you can think of. thank you :)

I got this ask ages ago and have been periodically rolling it around in and around other things, but I put it in front of myself again today and finally typed out a response. Below the cut, some thoughts on what these boys would be doing if they had, not only all survived the series, but done so in a way that left them free to pursue whatever ambitions or talents they might desire or discover.

Most of them.

Lets start with the inner circle and work our way out.

I think Biscuit (whose survival is probably the reason everyone else is alive in this hypothetical AU of ours, because he would have an aneurysm before he let Orga join hands with McGillis Fareed) could be good at practically anything he puts his mind to, and therefore, what I think he should probably do is go to school. He obviously values education–he spent lord knows how much time endangering life and limb to earn the money to put Cookie and Cracker through school, and clearly admires how far Savarin’s schooling took him in life. As to what he might study, there are a number of ways that could go–agricultural sciences to help his Granny Sakura with the farm, business to pick up where Savarin left off, possibly a social science so he can find a job in all the inevitable restructuring that Mars’ new government will be doing.

Eugene, more than anyone else, strikes me as wanting to find someone to settle down with. Unlike Shino, who talks about women solely in the context of his sex drive, Eugene is interested in romance. And while he doesn’t seem to have had much luck with that in IBO’s canon epilogue, in a more peaceful time, it’s easy to imagine him devoting more energy to dating. Without Tekkadan eating up his attention, whatever career he finds a way into–possibly bodyguard work still, or maybe an office job like Zack’s–would, I think, be just a way to help support a family.

Akihiro, unlike most all of the boys, already has a girl who’s interested in him, and if he survived this show for this AU, I see no reason to not imagine the Turbines did also. Lafter plainly was never going to leave the Turbines to be with him, of course, but if there was no Tekkadan to protect… I don’t think Naze would be very keen to break his girls-only rule, but every chick must leave the nest eventually–perhaps Lafter and Akihiro might be entrusted with protecting/leading another branch of the business? Given the size of the organization*, there must be other battleships doing the transport business/transport protection thing. Or they could just accompany whichever shipment Naze directed them towards.

That is, though, probably kind of a longshot. Tekkadan Inc. or no, Akihiro has strong feelings about protecting his family, and where I think that’s most likely to leave him is actually in Dante’s place in the epilogue, helping run the orphanage and taking care of children. While I don’t know that gentleness and empathy will ever come easily to him, he would be able to relate with the stories of the many ex-Debris children that orphanage is implied to be seeing post-outlawing-of-legal-child-trafficking, and it would be a way to both honor and grapple with the memory of Masahiro.

Derma would probably end up in about the same place he does in the show–assuming Akihiro doesn’t get adopted by the Turbines, I think Derma would follow him to the orphanage. He had been more directly under Dante’s wing in the series, of course, but for a lot of reasons, I don’t think that the same things that would appeal to Dante in civilian life would hold much interest for Derma. He doesn’t have Dante’s knack with computers; he doesn’t share Dante’s itch for fame. But he does have a load of self-confidence issues that make him exactly as likely to relate to orphan ex-Debris kids as Akihiro’s losses make him. (It’s also the case that Derma is the Tekkadan kid who’s the least explored outside of being a child soldier, so I’m inclined to err on the side of what the show points him to rather than make things up wildly, which is essentially what I’d be doing otherwise.)

Returning to the main group, Shino is easy; in a scenario in which he isn’t a paid civilian soldier, that guy has got “stunt show pilot” written all over him. I doubt Mars’ entertainment industry is so well developed that they need or can afford to hire mobile suit pilots for TV/film work, but I bet the planet can support something more like the Post-Disaster equivalent of monster truck derbies. They’d probably involve old/restored mobile workers, rather than the expensive military hardware that is a proper mobile suit, but I certainly don’t put it past Shino to showboat around in a decommissioned Flauros from time to time.

Dante, always grouped with Shino in combat, would probably follow him here. In a peaceful epilogue, Dante easily could have an entirely lucrative (and possibly illicit) career with his computer skills, but I think he’d finding sitting at a computer all day to be unfathomably boring the more like an actual desk job it became. Compared to the measure of fame Shino would be making for himself, it’s obvious which Dante would go for. Also, with two people with mobile suits, they could possibly get some kind of MS boxing circuit going. I think that would be a very longterm project, more suitable for when things calm back down and there are all these mobile suits around collecting dust.

Yamagi is a mechanic–he’s one of the few characters with job experience other than “soldier,” and there’s no reason to expect him to change streams from the canon to this AU. However, I think Yukinojo and Merribit would have encouraged him to go work with Shino’s pit crew/show team before too long, if he ever held a job down at Kassapa Factory to begin with. He and Shino are, almost certainly, dating on the side. Just, like, fill in Shino and Yamagi for the Special Feeling umbrella meme.

Ride is another gimme. He has an obvious artistic streak, the evidence of which is painted all over the Isaribi, the Tekkadan complex, and the orphanage building. If he didn’t need to fight (and while he was pretty gung-ho about it originally, I have to think the trauma from Hashmal and the agriculture plant is going to be long-lived), it’s very simple to imagine Ride getting nudged into pursuing art in a more professional way. Especially if Kudelia’s new government is subsidizing such things.

Chad is another one that I’d like to see in school. There are several instances in the series that impy he’s doing serious amounts of research/study on the side–he’s constantly shown asking pertinent questions or showcasing some skillset or bit of knowledge that he has no business having access to based simply on what we’re explicitly told about him. Given that, it’d be interesting for the others to convince him to set aside the helper ant mentality and go learn something he thinks is interesting. While Biscuit has family needs to guide his academic choices, Chad could really get into anything. I would slot him into a field that involves research but also quantifiable knowledge–history, for example, or psychology, rather than e.g. theoretical physics. I kind of love the idea of Chad getting access to a bunch of banned books via Kudelia or their Teiwaz connections.

Takaki seems on-track to wind up in politics, if not as a politician himself, then as the sort of lobbyist or aide that any notionally democratic government runs on. Given that he bailed out of fighting by choice, this seems to be his chosen path in any case. He’s also likely to make a hell of a diplomat when he gets older and picks up more confidence in himself.

Aston is so rooted in his self-image of “soldier” that it’s difficult to imagine what he might want to do outside of that field. We do know a few things about him that could give us a direction, though: he’s observant (noticing more about Fuka’s schoolwork than her own brother), he’s relatively prudent and cautious (his teamwork with Vito, and his reluctance to wildly charge McGillis), and he’s a mediator (between his quartet back with the Brewers, and again between Takaki and the other Earth Branch boys). So what kind of career could combine those traits with his gravitation towards military settings? Personally, I think he’d do really well as a crisis negotiator–a specialist brought in by police to help with hostage situations and other threats of e.g. domestic violence, terrorism, suicide, and so on. Of course, the trick there is less getting certified for that job than it is finding a group to work alongside–while I can see him joining an Arbrau/Edmonton police force, it’s much harder to imagine him being able to get a job with Gjallarhorn. In any case, assuming he can manage to find an avenue for said work, he’d be great at it.

This brings us to our Season 2 newbies.

Hush I would mostly see following Mikazuki into farming. Not just to be following Mika, mind, but because Hush’s motivation, beyond a big ol’ chip on his shoulder about the Alaya Vijnana system, is much the same as so many others–to protect and provide for his social circle. If he’s provided an avenue for that that isn’t constant endangerment of life and limb, I think it’s what he’d go for. And farming is helping to provide for a great many people, some very directly–the fact that he can still be around to help Mikazuki is just a bonus.

Zack joined Tekkadan because of their fame, rather than out of real necessity–so what exactly did he think was so cool about Tekkadan to begin with? Given his reticence about actual combat when he comes face to face with it, perhaps it’s more the “spitting in Gjallarhorn’s eye” aspect than the feats of badassity? Given that, what could he do that would scratch that itch? Well, he’s a hell of a programmer, and has Dante available to teach him anything about hacking he doesn’t already know. I think he’d be very happy being one of those whistle-blower internet Ariadne activist types, finding secret information, info on cover-ups, or details on corruption, and providing proof of such things to the world at large, particularly given how government-controlled the media is in the setting.

Dane is already living a life free of fighting, so it’s possible that, absent Tekkadan being a bunch of criminals, he might end up working at Kassapa Factory anyway, or perhaps going with Yamagi to Shino and Dante’s venture. He’s another big mystery as to things he might enjoy outside of work; for example, he evinces little patience with Hush until Hush starts showing some basic empathy/humility, which leads me to think that close work with people would probably not be his thing. So sticking to work with his hands, I wonder if he, like Ride, would get any mileage out of art? He could snap paintbrushes like twigs, of course, but I can see him being good at something like pottery, and if his pre-show history is as violent as we’re lead to believe, I can see it being relaxing–probably as a hobby, rather than a career, just something he can do on his own time and terms.

So, that’s every–mm? A significant exclusion? A deuteragonist undiscussed?

Oh, right.

So, Orga. What would Orga do in peacetime? Well, that’s difficult to even try to conceive. Orga, like McGillis, is massively defined by both his ambition and his dissatisfaction with the status quo. He’s never satisfied, never content; he interprets Mikazuki’s intense gaze as a challenge, and it never stops pushing him forward, no matter who else tries to tell him he’s going too fast. What could Orga ever do in peacetime? It’s tempting to say that every one of the hypothetical outcomes above was paid for in Orga’s blood, because less than a handful of these people would ever desert Orga if he lived, and while he lived and had people looking to him, he would never stop. In that way, Tekkadan is in a feedback loop that they can’t get out of without a system-redefining change. Looking at his skill set, we again find a bunch of things that suggest that Orga works best as a leader–he’s canny, highly charismatic, a quick thinker, and he has killer instincts, albeit with some Mikazuki-sized blind spots. This is a kid practically fated to be a gang leader–and he’s also oathsworn to the mob, making getting out of that life safely a dicey prospect.

So what is there for him, if not fighting? Purely as an imaginary exercise, he’d be a scary effective community leader. I mean, just imagine being a city representative showing up to a town hall meeting and this is waiting in the front row:

But that’s still pretty mundane. Lets try something really different on for size.

During the season break, Orga is attending some official function at Saisei, lurking around afterward and waiting for a chance to talk to Naze. Out of nowhere, he gets jumped by the fashion equivalent of Saisei’s eccentric mechanic, who insists that Orga’s je ne sais quoi levels are off the charts, and he absolutely must grant her at least one modeling session. Naze, walking in on this conversation, has a huge laugh about it and goads Orga into accepting. And then the whole of the second season gets derailed because suddenly Orga is faced with the argument that sufficiently famous people are also rich and powerful, rich and powerful enough that he could relocate his entire gang to some private satellite around Jupiter if he were so inclined. And maybe it feels immaterial, and maybe it wasn’t the method what he expected, but that doesn’t make the paycheck any less real. The designer tells him in no uncertain terms that if he wants to continue, she will personally talk McMurdo Barriston’s ear off about how he is completely wasting this surly teenager’s God-given personal magnetism.

Orga immediately has a huge crisis over it, because it feels terrifyingly unmasculine and he has no concept of the term “soft power.” Atra loves it, though, and Biscuit thinks it’s strange but effective. Things almost fall through anyway when it comes out that Orga has a whisker implant, but the designer is insistent, so they end up just photo-editing it out and limiting his public appearances, which is just as well, because he finds crowds and fans alike to be extremely uncomfortable.

Tekkadan still do odd jobs for Teiwaz now and again, like protecting Kudelia from Dawn Horizon, but are mostly out of the line of fire when McGillis starts looking around for allies. McGillis, deprived of a Tekkadan he can talk around on joining him, is left profoundly annoyed. How things go from there is a whole new question.

*Allow me to quote from this post:

In the interest of context for the number I’m about to lay on you, the Dawn Horizon group–a band of pirates who have ten ships and are considered sizeable enough that they fill a niche that’s important to Gjallarhorn, and would also be too much a pain to try to oust entirely, have around 2,500 members. Wow! That’s a lot!

The Turbines have 50,000 members.

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#mobile suit gundam: iron-blooded orphans #gundam ibo #g tekketsu #my writing #asks #orga's lucrative modelling career is a hilarious au and i thank you for the opportunity to discover it #stillness-answers #ibo meta

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eldritchsurveys · 4 years ago

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963.

5k Survey LVII

2901. have you ever written a letter to: a friend: a lover: a celebrity: congress/house/reps: the president/leader of your country: >> I haven’t written a letter since, like, middle school. 2902. Why are ciggarette companies allowed to manufacture and sell ciggarettes when they are so unhealthy and dangerous? They are getting rich on the deaths of the people you love who smoke. >> What do you mean, why are they allowed? Because, yes, it makes an insane amount of profit, and their corporate lobbyists basically pour vats of money into politicians’ laps. This is how capitalism works. This is one of many reasons why we hate it. 2903. Do you chat with people in an elevator? >> No. 2904. What's your favorite Jack Nicholson movie? >> I don’t think I have one. I mean, The Shining was good... 2905. Who should play the part of Superman? >> I couldn’t care less.

2906. Do you like when your friends and your mate's friends hang out? >> If this was a situation I could feasibly be in (as in, we both had solidified friend groups in the first place), I definitely wouldn’t mind it. 2907. Doritos or Cheetos? >> I hate both. 2910. Do you brush your teeth three times a day? >> Hell no. 2911. Should I stop making question swith multiple parts and just count each actual question as a question? >> Yeah, I’ve been consolidating them most of the time because it just irks me for some undefined reason. 2912. What gives your ego a boost? >> I don’t know. I’m not terribly acquainted with the feeling of having my ego boosted. Even with things like comments on my fics my brain will make up a flip side to be sad about so I can’t be too pleased, because gods forbid I ever feel just entirely good about myself. One fucking day... 2913. What knocks your ego down? >> A lot of things, lmao. 2914. Live and let live or live and let die? >> Er... 2915. What do you think of Damien Hirst's art piece Mother and Child, which is half a cow in formaldedhyde? >> I’ve never seen it and it doesn’t sound worth looking up. I don’t get how the title relates, either. 2916. Why is it that 70 percent of americans Do Not want to go to war with Iraq and yet we are going to war with Iraq anyway? Is this democracy? >> This country rarely functions like an actual democracy. Also, there are way too many political questions in this survey lately, let’s go back to talking about me. ~ 2917. Imagine you have two chices of what life you can live: One: You are provided with meals, medicine, clothes and shelter. You are always with your family. You can lie in the sun and smoke, drink, play, cook, etc.. There will be certain rules you must follow such as no killing, no hurting others, no leaving the commune you were born in, no stealing, no tv, no newspapers and no books. OR Two: You are turned loose in the world with nothing. You start out cold and hungry. You may stay cold and hungry forever but you also have the opportunity to try and make a life for yourself. This will take a lot of hard work and there is no guaruntee you will ever live comfortably. Which life do you choose? WHY? >> Here’s the thing -- having a meta option like this is fucked, because if you’re just born into one life or the other, you don’t know anything else. So you learn to live with what you’ve got, and it becomes yours. It is your lot and you will live with it (or commit suicide, I guess). But having to choose between one or the other... is a whole different thing entirely. Will you remember the choice you made? Will you wonder if it was the right one? Will you always be wondering that? How do you truly enjoy any life you’re given, if you know you could have chosen a different one? Every bad day becomes “I bet I wouldn’t be dealing with this if I’d picked Life A” and every good day becomes “see, I knew I picked the right life” and it’s just... it’s not at all how I’d want to live, let’s just put it that way. So, no. Roulette-wheel me without my ken and let me learn to live wherever I land. 2918. Why is there no 'Mr. America' pageant? Should there be? What qualities would YOU look for in a Mr. America if such a contest were to exist (like miss america he would have to be a role model)? >> I don’t care about pageants, I think they’re utterly absurd. 2919. If something offends you do you feel that it has no right to exist? >> If something legitimately offends me, yeah. Like, I can’t imagine any good reason why racism should exist... 2920. Why do advertisers seem to believe that guys will buy any product that a hot girl in a bikini is sitting next too? >> Advertisers believe that because of their market research and social observations. As flawed and manipulative and biased as all that can be. 2921. What would you do if your mom had a fight with a male acquaintance and you heard an answering machine message he left her cursing at her, calling her names and being very disrespectful? >> --- 2922. What do you represent? >> I don’t represent anything. 2923. What message does ___ send when given as a birthday present? flowers: slippers: candles: diamond necklace: gift certificate: cash: books: 2924. Have you ever completed a paint by number? If yes of what? >> Maybe when I was a child. 2925. How long has it been since you colored in a coloring book? >> A year or two. 2926. What have you been caught doing? >> ??? 2927. Does temptation make you do what you love? >> What??? 2928. Do you have an gadgets in the house that you don't know how to use? What? >> Probably, but it would just be a matter of looking up how to use it. Nothing terribly complicated. 2929. Do you read the instructions to things or skip them? >> It depends on the thing. Like, I don’t read the instructions to new laptops because they all basically work the same, but I did read the instructions to my gaming rig because it had to be kind of assembled and certain wires had to go certain places and shit like that. 2930. Will yu ever reach your full potential? >> --- 2931. Who is your biggest fan? >> I don’t know. Can Calah, probably. :) 2932. Who do you take care of? Who takes care of you? >> Can Calah takes care of me. I don’t take care of anyone. 2933. Do you think that lawyers should only argue cases when they feel like the client is in the right? If you were a lawyer would you argue cases when you felt like your client was completely wrong? >> I really have no opinion about this (and I would never be a lawyer). 2934. Is it sexy in here or is it just me? >> --- 2935. You are giving out your phone number to a HOTTIE by writing it on a napkin. Do you write a little note or draw a picture too? If yes, what? >> --- 2936. Can you fold paper into anything (a hat, a swan, a boat, etc)? What? >> I can do some basic origami but nothing fancy. 2937. How can a girl get a guy-she-is-dating's mom to like her better? >> --- 2938. What is one theory about life or anything that you came up with that no one else has? >> --- 2939. Do you like answering questions about: your life? Oh, brother. Formatting this is going to be so annoying... your taste? tv? music? art? politics? life? religion? issues? sex? loved ones? favorites? objects? math? philosophy? hypothetical situations? things that require lots of thought? 2940. The mortuary science department is having a bake sale. Does this strike you as funny? >> No, because I can’t figure out what the joke would be. Like, if all the baked goods were shaped like organs or something, that’d be amusing. Otherwise... ??? 2941. What would you think of a new reality tv game show where real life criminals on death row competed in life threatening tasks for the prize of a reduced sentance? Did you know that they are considering making this a show? Would you watch it? >> I wouldn’t watch something like that, no. 2942. What was the last song you looked up the words to? >> I don’t remember, but I did think about looking up the words to Dragonsong from FFXIV and trying to memorise them. It seems like it’d be a fun exercise to try and sing it. 2943. What Saturday morning cartoons do you like? >> I don’t even know what counts as a Saturday morning cartoon anymore. Is that still a thing, or has cable basically phased that out? 2944. If anything's possible, then is it possible that nothing's possible? >> I don’t know, man. 2944. What does the T in T-Shirt really mean? >> I don’t know. Google does, though. 2945. Would you alter your routine if there was a sniper in your area? If so how? >> My routine mostly involves being indoors, so I doubt I’d even have to change anything. 2946. Is castration a good punishment for extreme or repeat sexual offenders? >> No. 2947. If you are a girl have you ever experianced penis envy? If you are a guy would you still want to live if you had to be castrated? >> --- 2948. Imagine you are teaching a class of sixth graders. A the start of the year you tell them, "If you come away with class and have learned only ONE THING, I hope that you learned....(finish the sentence) >> --- 2949. If you were being interviewed for a job in a clothing store how would you sell yourself to the prospective employers? >> I wouldn’t. It’s retail, dude. Either hire me or don’t, but don’t expect me to do some kind of song and dance for it. 2950. How do you stop pop up ads? >> uBlock Origin.

#surveys #survey #5000 question survey

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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‘This makes me a little queasy ... which is good.’

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/this-makes-me-a-little-queasy-which-is-good/

‘This makes me a little queasy ... which is good.’

After recruiting thousands of donors for the American Conservative Union — the powerful organization behind the annual CPAC conference — a Republican political operative pushed the same contributors to give millions to a PAC that promised to go after then-President Barack Obama, but then steered much of their donations to himself and his partners.

The PAC, called the Conservative Majority Fund, has raised nearly $10 million since mid-2012 and continues to solicit funds to this day, primarily from thousands of steadfast contributors to conservative causes, many of them senior citizens. But it has made just $48,400 in political contributions to candidates and committees. Public records indicate its main beneficiaries are the operative Kelley Rogers, who has a history of disputes over allegedly unethical fundraising, and one of the largest conservative fundraising companies, InfoCision Management Corp., which charged millions of dollars in fundraising fees.

Story Continued Below

The saga of how politically connected fundraisers used one of the nation’s leading conservative organizations as a springboard for fundraising that mainly benefited the fundraisers themselves sheds light on the growing problem of so-called scam PACs — organizations that take advantage of loosened campaign finance laws to reap windfalls for insiders while directing only a small portion of receipts to actual political advocacy.

Watchdogs have long complained that ethics laws fail to prevent the exploitation of donors by organizations operating with little or no oversight, and even President Donald Trump’s campaign issued a warning this year about “dishonest fundraising groups” using the president’s name to raise funds.

Rogers’ and InfoCision’s work on behalf of the ACU also shows how lax regulation allows big-name political organizations to recruit donors without identifying either the source of the calls or the ultimate beneficiaries of the donations. ACU appears to have had little control over the PAC’s operation and was not the source of its fundraising scripts.

“The individuals — or many of the individuals — who seem to be profiting off of scam PACs are the same people who also provide services to mainstream players,” said Adav Noti, a lawyer who worked for more than 10 years at the Federal Election Commission. “Obviously, not every political consultant is fleecing small donors. But the consultants who are fleecing small donors, largely the way they’re able to do that is because they have experience and connections.”

Rogers and InfoCision did not respond to repeated requests for interviews — including lists of detailed questions. But the extent of their operation is detailed in a series of emails and documents obtained by ProPublica and Politico from a person with direct knowledge. In the records, Rogers and his cohorts discuss how to contour their pitches to collect the most money, betting that the most red-meat appeals would draw the most dollars.

“This makes me a little queasy … which is good,” Rogers wrote after reviewing a script for a fundraising call that questioned Obama’s citizenship. “This is approved.”

The emails raise questions about Rogers’ work ostensibly on behalf of the ACU, which burst to fame in the 1970s and calls its conference “the birthplace of modern conservatism” for its role in elevating Ronald Reagan. The CPAC conference, most recently held at National Harbor, Maryland, is widely considered a crucial point of connection between GOP leadership and the grassroots activists who whip up excitement for the party’s agenda.

In 2010, the ACU enlisted Rogers to find new donors for the organization. To do so, Rogersformed a political nonprofitcalled the New Conservative Coalition and began soliciting money. It raised nearly $3.4 million between 2010 and mid-2012, although none of that money went to the ACU,IRS filingsandrecords from Coloradoshow, because prospecting for new donors routinely consumes most or all of the money brought in.

By early 2012, the group appears to have test-marketed pitches to donors that were too extreme or embarrassing to be associated with the ACU itself. The emails reflect the insistence of then-ACU Chairman Al Cardenas, the veteran conservative lobbyist, and others in the organization that no trace of the ACU’s fingerprints be visible in the scripts given to telemarketers.

“Kelley just left me a voicemail that ACU has received a few calls in their office from people who ACU thought had received a [fundraising] call … [and] been directed to the ACU’s conservative.org website (and then called the ACU office.),” wrote one of Rogers’s colleagues. “… it may be nothing … but would you double check to make sure their [sic] in NO reference to ACU, conservative.org or Al Cardenas in any script, including the thank you call script?”

After finding references to ACU affiliates in some of the scripts, an operative asked, “I’m assuming we need ALL ACU references removed — is that right?”

“Yes … just get rid of all of them,” responded another.

At another point, Rogers’ colleagues expressed concern about Cardenas’ Hispanic heritage and the tenor of their anti-immigration message to donors. The script, drafted in January 2012, declared that undocumented immigrants “account for a large percentage of our crime — and prison costs … and take jobs away from Americans.” Those claims are not supported by evidence.

“Cardenas, the ACU Chairman, is Hispanic,” the consultant working with Rogers wrote. “In an effort to keep this script under the radar I think we should re-name it ‘Obama’s Plan.’”

In an interview, Cardenas said he didn’t recall any disagreements between ACU and InfoCision. He said ACU had been careful to run the fundraising project by its lawyers.

“The only thing I remember is making sure our executive director thought it was a good idea” to seek out new donors, Cardenas said. “Probably, the consultants got upset with the parameters that our legal counsel set.”

Asked why ACU would shield its identity when pitching donors, Cardenas said, “Using our name and my name is something we wouldn’t want to happen because a) it would hurt our own fundraising purposes, and b) we have very little control over content and we didn’t want our reputation to be tainted in any way — but I’m only guessing.”

The ACU executive director at the time, Gregg Keller, declined to comment. The ACU and current director Matt Schlapp did not respond to repeated requests for comment, including an emailed list of specific questions concerning the organization’s dealings with Rogers and InfoCision.

What’s It Like to Fall Prey to a Political Fundraising Campaign? See for Yourself.

By the end of the summer of 2012, Rogers and InfoCision had broken with the ACU andcreated a new federal PAC, the Conservative Majority Fund. It began raising money using the New Conservative Coalition donor list and aggressive fundraising tactics, which painted Obama as a shady figure whose real name was “Barry Soetoro” and who “had long-term relationships with terrorists,” according to scripts for calls circulated among people working on the fundraising campaign. Neither claim is accurate. The PAC said it was hiring investigators to press the case that Obama was ineligible to be president.

That message struck gold:$2.8 millionpoured in from more than 30,000 donors during the five months from July to December of that year alone. To kick off its campaign, the PAC paid $371,000 in August 2012 fora television adthat briefly aired on cable television and urged viewers to call the PAC, where they would be solicited for donations. After August, it ran no television ads and made no expenditures for anything other than fundraising.

FEC records show almost all the money went for calls to donors like Mike Miller, a jeweler in Barrington, Ill.,who gave $500.

“At the time they called, it seemed like such an important thing,” Miller said in a phone interview. “I was assuming they were legitimate.” When told about the group’s lack of spending on disqualifying Obama from the ballot, he said, “If they did this, and didn’t use it for intended purposes, I want my money back.”

On the day after Obama won reelection, the PAC changed its call scripts, telling donors that Obama’s “immediate plans are to pardon the terrorists at Guantanamo, give full amnesty to illegal aliens and give the United Nations the authority to tax Americans,” according to a fundraising script in the emails. There is no evidence that any of those plans were under consideration by the Obama administration. Donors were told that the PAC had hired a team of investigators and lawyers to press for impeachment. There is no evidence in FEC records that it ever did.

The fundraising scripts included suggested responses if the prospective donors said they were unemployed, on a fixed income or had significant medical bills to pay, encouraging them to give a smaller amount. When recipients asked not to be called again, the script instructed the telemarketers to offer to place them on a “restricted list” so that they would not get more than one call every 30 days. If recipients insisted, they would be added to a no-call list.

Rogers has previously come under harsh scrutiny for raising large amounts of money but spending little on the promised advocacy. Former Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinellisued Rogersfor his involvement in a PAC that raised money purportedly to support Cuccinelli’s unsuccessful bid for governor in 2013 but did not spend anything to help Cuccinelli win. The case was settled in 2015. In 2017, Rogers’ Maryland office wasraided by the FBI, but no charges were brought.

Election integrity experts have warned that alleged scam PACs are siphoning tens of millions of dollars in political donations into the coffers of fundraisers each year, while misleading donors.

Lynne Archer, 72, gave the Conservative Majority Fund $3,800between 2012 and 2018. Archer said she tries to be wary of potential scams, but the Conservative Majority Fund had always sounded “like a legitimate group” when it solicited money.

“Damn, I gave a lot to them,” said Archer, who lives in Sugar Land, Texas, and works for her husband at an automobile dealership. “I don’t like that at all.”

Noti, who used to work at the FEC, called the proliferation of scam PACs “incredibly corrosive to American democracy” because of the impact on donors like Archer — many of them elderly — who give money in good faith to political causes.

“It’s going to chase people out of the system once those donors realize their money’s been stolen,” Noti said. “They’re going to be disillusioned and disenchanted, and rightfully so.”

Both Rogers’ Annapolis, Md.-based Strategic Campaign Group and the Akron, Ohio-based InfoCision, a direct marketing firm, were once staples of GOP fundraising. Rogers’ clients included Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran and national security adviser John Bolton, while InfoCision helped raise money for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Rifle Association.

When the ACU sought to expand its roster of donors, it contracted with Rogers and InfoCision to make calls to a large number of potential contributors — a time-consuming, and therefore expensive, process known as “prospecting.”

During the spring and summer of 2012, several employees who worked in the political division at InfoCision, along with Rogers and other consultants, began using increasingly aggressive fundraising tactics for ACU — though the organization was never supposed to be named in fundraising materials or scripts.

The scripts tapped into voter concerns about illegal immigration. One, in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign, declared that there was a “huge scandal” that the group had “recently uncovered,” in which Obama was “now planning to deliberately target 20-million poor Latino immigrants — a desperate effort to win re-election,” according to the emails.

Those pitches led to a flurry of emails discussing the nature of the appeals — and whether they might alienate Cardenas. Rogers was the main conduit for complaints, often relaying concerns from ACU leaders to the fundraisers crafting the various appeals.

Several months later Rogers proposed something else entirely: He and InfoCision would take the lists of donors they had harvested while working with ACU, split off their own fundraising operation, then open it as a PAC and raise money without ACU as a client.

“It’s becoming very apparent to me for many reasons that we are going to have to de-affiliate” the fundraising with ACU, Rogers wrote. “I am still trying to resolve issues with them but I can tell we are headed for trouble.”

Tensions between the ACU and the people operating the donor recruitment operation continued, emails among InfoCision employees indicate, because the PAC’s early fundraising pleas sometimes included references to ACU despite ACU’s wishes that they didn’t.

“We now have to eliminate ALL ACU references” in the materials for the group, wrote Erik Byers, an account executive who helped oversee the work done on behalf of ACU, to his colleagues on June 29, 2012. “Kelley got blasted by ACU.”

Soon after, in early July, Rogers and a handful of other individuals established the Conservative Majority Fund and began raising money.

Because InfoCision telemarketers (called “Communicators”) might recognize that they were reusing fundraising appeals, a company manager stressed the importance of a separate identity.

“We’re starting a new, independent PAC, with an established donor base,” Matthew Birkbeck, then a marketing executive at InfoCision, wrote. “It’s exciting, so sell it! We can’t have the Communicators talking about ACU. There are threats of lawsuits surrounding this!!!”

Calls and emails to Birkbeck were not returned.

By mid-August, Rogers wrote to the ACU that the fundraising operation with them “is completely shut down in all fronts.”

In the months that followed, the InfoCision managers created increasingly provocative call scripts focused onvoter fraud, Obama’s (false) country of birth and — after his reelection — an impeachment drive to remove him from office.

In addition to Rogers, the InfoCision account manager Byers, a consultant and two other InfoCision employees, including Birkbeck, were involved with the Conservative Majority Fund, according to the emails. All of those people had also been involved with the previous work with the ACU, and the group worked quickly to close accounts and reassign paperwork to the new organization.

Scott Mackenzie, a Republican bookkeeper who serves as the treasurer for dozens of political committees, was treasurer of the group, responsible for filing its reports with the FEC.

Mackenzie did not respond to a request for comment. Byers, of InfoCision, did not respond to requests for comment.

The PAC’s executive director was Dennis Whitfield, a former deputy secretary of Labor in the Reagan administration. Whitfield worked as a consultant for ACU in 2012, according to the group’s website. He also worked with Rogers at Strategic Campaign Group. Whitfield’s name was used to help promote the Conservative Majority Fund, for example on anOctober 2012 letterabout voter fraud that cautioned: “I mean, imagine how you’ll feel if Obama wins because of all this? We’re scared to death!”

Phone calls to Whitfield were not returned.

The InfoCision staff and Rogers got their first look at a fundraising script and a television ad for the new Conservative Majority Fund on July 5, just two weeks after Rogers floated the idea for opening the PAC. They described an effort to remove Obama from the ballot and raised questions about his eligibility to be president.

“We need to gather 10,000 signatures from each congressional district to have him removed from the ballot,” one script read, before callers asked people for donations. The procedure for removing candidates from the ballot varies by state, but does not require the specific goal claimed by the script. If the donor gave money using a credit card, the caller was instructed to try to upsell them: “I want to let you know that we’re developing some new TV ads about Obama’s past that are going to shock people. We need to get the ads on the air quickly, so can we count on you for an additional gift[?]”

Rogers approved both pitches, according to the emails.

Using the ACU donors and lists of conservative donors pulled from InfoCision’s collection or purchased from other vendors, the new group raked in large amounts of money: From 2012 to 2018, the Conservative Majority Fund disclosed raising more than $9.6 million, almost entirely from small-dollar donors. At least $9 million of that has been paid to InfoCision for expenses reported as fundraising costs. Strategic Campaign Group, where Rogers works, received an additional $229,000, while Mackenzie was paid $172,000 as the PAC’s treasurer.

In its reporting to the FEC, the Conservative Majority Funddisclosedspending $5.3 million on what it described as expressly political expenditures, but nearly all of it was on fundraising calls — placed by InfoCision — that criticized Democratic politicians, particularly Obama and Hillary Clinton. The Conservative Majority Fund produced two TV ads, but it appears to have spent little money airing them. Most of itsrecent activityhas been phone calls and social media posts supportive of Trump, whose image figures prominently onthe PAC’s website.

There’s no further evidence in records that the Conservative Majority Fund was active in the 2012 elections. Nonetheless, the group bragged in various solicitations to donors that it was taking on a range of anti-Obama organizing, which included employing a “Truth Squad” to lobby states to remove Obama from the ballot; “hiring undercover researchers” to expose attempts by the Obama campaign to commit voter fraud; and putting “media specialists” on television and radio shows, as well as authoring newspaper and magazine articles and social media posts, “giving regular updates on Obama’s dirty tricks.”

ProPublica and Politico did not find any record of experts from the Conservative Majority Fund appearing on television or radio to discuss the election and could find no evidence from the states cited by the group — Alabama, Tennessee, Arizona and Illinois — indicating it lobbied to remove Obama from the ballot. And the Conservative Majority Fund could not have worked in states to stop “phony [voter] registrations,” which an October 2012 letter to donors said it would do. By then, the voter rolls were closed in many states and could not be changed by anyone.

Starting the day after Obama was reelected, employees at InfoCision began circulating plans for a new message for callers: a case for impeaching the president.

“Impeachment is our only option,” said a recording that InfoCision planned to play to potential donors, according to emails circulated among the operatives on Nov. 7, 2012. “And Republicans are already considering Obama investigations. As the nation’s most effective conservative group … We are launching the official ‘IMPEACH OBAMA’ campaign.”

At least from a fundraising perspective, the campaign was a success: In the first six months of 2013,FEC records show, the PAC raised an additional $1.7 million.

At least since 2015, federal regulators have been aware of complaints about the tactics used by the Conservative Majority Fund, as well as other PACs linked to Rogers and Mackenzie, the PAC’s treasurer. But the Conservative Majority Fund continued to operate with relatively little attention from authorities, a reflection of how federal laws do little to protect the public from potential scam PACs, according to watchdogs.

The FEC has twice probed the Conservative Majority Fund’s activities — but the commission, despite being the main federal regulator, is limited in what it can do. In July 2016, the FEC found the Conservative Majority Fund had misreported items on its federal disclosures during the 2013-14 election cycle. It paid a $3,500 fine. In October 2017, the FEC approvedan auditcovering the last six months of 2012 that found the Conservative Majority Fund had misstated its financial activity.

Both inquiries only skimmed the surface, looking at financial forms submitted to the commission.

The commission rarely chooses to launch full investigations — which allow it to ask questions, interview employees and demand documents from a group — without first having evidence of wrongdoing.

There are also holes in federal law that make it difficult for the commission to exercise meaningful oversight of groups like the Conservative Majority Fund. While the law prohibits raising campaign money while fraudulently “acting for or on behalf of any candidate or political party,” it does little to address a PAC like the Conservative Majority Fund that didn’t do this. The bar for federal law enforcement in proving a broader criminal statute like wire fraud is far higher. Last year, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York for the first time indicted two men for wire fraud who ran PACs that raised money in the name of causes such as autism awareness and helping police.

In a2016 memo on the issue, two FEC commissioners implored their colleagues to take action against scam PACs but acknowledged that federal law gives political committees “great leeway on how they use the funds” they raise.

“The power of the Commission to directly and comprehensively protect political contributors is limited,” the two commissioners concluded.

In late 2018, the FECformally asked Congress to take actionagainst “fraudulent PAC practices” by some PACs. “These committees solicit contributions with promises of supporting candidates, but then disclose minimal or no candidate support activities while engaging in significant and continuous fundraising, which predominantly funds personal compensation for the committees’ organizers,” the commission wrote.

When Cuccinelli, the former Virginia attorney general and gubernatorial candidate, sued Rogers and a PAC called Conservative StrikeForce, he said they’d used his name to raise more than $2 million but donated just $10,000 to his campaign.

Cuccinelli settled with Rogers and Conservative StrikeForce in May 2015 for $85,000. Cuccinelli’s spokesperson did not respond to an interview request.

In 2017, the FBI raided the Annapolis office of Rogers’ consulting firm. At the time, Rogers said the FBI appeared interested in work his firm did in the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial race, but the FBI did not shed any light on its actions. The pre-dawn raid was a nearly unheard of occurrence in the political sphere, but it didn’t result in charges being brought against Rogers or the PAC. Rogers’ firm shut down its website and closed the office in Annapolis.

InfoCision, meanwhile, paid a $250,000 settlement in 2018 for “deceptive charitable solicitation calls” in an unrelated case. InfoCision callers initially told potential donors they were not calling to solicit donations when that was not the case, according to the Federal Trade Commission. But the FTC does not have similar jurisdiction over political fundraising, highlighting that business solicitations are more highly regulated than political fundraising.

Election law experts have proposed changes that would discourage scam PACs by broadening anti-fraud provisions in federal election law or enacting an anti-self-dealing provision that prohibits PAC operators from turning an excessive profit. Smaller changes, such as expanding the requirements for PACs to disclose more information to donors who visit their websites, could also help curb the number of scam PACs operating in the political space.

“It seems that it would not be that hard, and it should be something that is bipartisan, you would hope,” said Ann Ravel, former chair of the FEC.

The argument for enacting more regulation on scam PACs is “similar to why there’s oversight over nonprofits who take money from individuals in the name of good causes, and then use it to enrich themselves,” Ravel said. “It’s stealing.”

We’re still reporting on the booming scam PAC business. Do you think one has been asking you for money? Tell our reporter Maggie Severns at [email protected] or via Signal at 612-669-8689.

This story was co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to get their biggest stories in your inbox.

#Foreign #little #Politics #queasy

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investmart007 · 6 years ago

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. | Feinstein's re-election opponent criticizes her over letter

New Post has been published on https://www.stl.news/sacramento-calif-feinsteins-re-election-opponent-criticizes-her-over-letter/172255/

SACRAMENTO, Calif. | Feinstein's re-election opponent criticizes her over letter

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, and Kevin de Leon, a Democrat in the California state Senate, rarely have much in common. But they’re united in their condemnation this week of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Feinstein is playing a central role in the battle over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. She received a confidential letter earlier this summer from a constituent who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party more than three decades ago, allegations that didn’t begin to surface publicly until last week.

Feinstein has argued she sought to honor the confidentiality of the letter, whose author, Christine Blasey Ford, came forward last weekend in an interview with The Washington Post.

McConnell slammed Feinstein for keeping the letter “secret until the 11th hour.” De Leon, who is challenging Feinstein in the Nov. 6 election, said her actions amounted to a “failure of leadership.” Feinstein defended herself in a Tuesday interview, and Ford’s lawyer has said she acted appropriately.

The accusation, which Kavanaugh has denied, is consuming Washington, where the nomination’s fate is suddenly in limbo. It’s also giving de Leon an opening to criticize Feinstein in his uphill election fight.

“That was a valuable piece of info that you could have kept the confidentiality and kept her privacy and still dealt with the issue at hand,” he said in a Monday interview.

He said he would have shared the letter with fellow Democrats on the Judiciary Committee while redacting identifying information and said Feinstein should have asked Kavanaugh about his character during hearings.

Feinstein, who has been backed by several fellow Senate Democrats, said Tuesday she was honoring Ford’s request to keep the information confidential.

“I did not know whether this woman would come forward or not. I did not know if it was credible,” she told reporters. “We were looking for a way to get it investigated by an outside investigator and what we found is we had to go through (the rules committee) and we were discussing the pros and cons of doing that, so it hasn’t been easy.”

Republicans also seized on a remark from Feinstein to Fox News that they saw as casting doubt on elements of Ford’s story. “I can’t say everything’s truthful,” Feinstein said when asked about Ford. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, tweeted

the quote and said it’s “now clear” why Feinstein kept the allegation secret.

Feinstein later clarified to reporters that she finds Ford credible, based on what she knowns so far. She added, “One of the things I know is what happens to women in this situation and how difficult it is, and I hope people will let her be.”

Feinstein faces a fellow Democrat in November because of California’s unusual primary system that sends the two highest vote-getters to the general election regardless of party. As one of California’s best-known politicians and one with deep pockets, Feinstein has kept de Leon’s challenge at bay even as he’s sought to paint her as too deferential to President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, he released an online advertisement linking Feinstein’s language in the 1990s about immigrants in the country illegally to Trump’s rhetoric today.

But his criticism on the Kavanaugh issue, made in statements, interviews and even a fundraising appeal, doesn’t come without risk. He led the state Senate last fall when accusations of widespread misconduct rocked the Capitol. De Leon’s former housemate was forced to resign after allegations he made advances on multiple women, including inviting a young woman in a fellowship program back to the house the two shared in Sacramento. De Leon denied knowledge of it and moved out after the news broke. He also hired outside investigators to look into complaints and introduced a resolution to expel Democratic Sen. Tony Mendoza, who eventually resigned.

A bill to give whistleblower protections to state legislative employees died repeatedly in the Senate, only passing this year, spurred by the #MeToo movement. That bill’s sponsor, Republican Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, took to Twitter to criticize de Leon, and women who led the Capitol’s #MeToo movement chimed in.

“As one of the CA Capitol women who helped elevate the issue I can attest to Kevin’s lack of action,” tweeted Alicia Lewis, a Sacramento lobbyist. Lewis said she voted for de Leon in the California primary but will now back Feinstein in November.

De Leon said the whistleblower bill didn’t explicitly reference sexual harassment victims until this year, when it passed the Senate, though Melendez said it was always the intent to protect employees who report harassment. He called comparisons between his and Feinstein’s actions “apples to oranges,” and noted the California Legislature’s complete overhaul of its procedures for handling sexual misconduct this year following the #MeToo movement.

Elected to the Senate in 1992, Feinstein was one of the first women to sit on the Judiciary Committee. She joined the panel as its previously all-male membership was grappling with stinging criticism of its handling of Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

Over the years, Feinstein has developed a reputation for her preference of decorum and discretion. But that approach clashes with the more aggressive style that a new generation of liberal lawmakers such as de Leon is promoting.

Upending decorum has never been Feinstein’s style, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a public policy professor at the University of Southern California.

“It seems to me this is in line with the way Dianne Feinstein has always behaved, very carefully, very circumspectly,” Jeffe said.

By KATHLEEN RONAYNE, Associated Press

#california state senate #confidentiality #decades ago #Dianne Feinstein #election opponent criticizes #kathleen ronayne #press sacramento #Senate Judiciary Committee #TodayNews #Top Democrat #Washington Post

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elizabethcariasa · 6 years ago

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Know what's taxable or not before filing your return

Money courtesy Pictures of Money via Flickr

Most of us can't afford extravagant wardrobes. And we own, at most, one house. But for many of us, there's one thing that most of us share with lavish-living Paul J. Manafort.

We, like the former lobbyist and political consultant, are not fans of paying taxes, especially really big Internal Revenue Service bills.

Rick Gates, Manafort's former right-hand man, today told jurors hearing the tax evasion and bank fraud charges against his former boss that Manafort disliked paying a lot of taxes.

But, I hope, that we aren't following Manafort's alleged method to reduce our tax bills.

Under reporting income: Federal prosecutors contend that Manafort, with Gates' help, failed to properly report all of his earnings.

Gates, seated in the Alexandria, Virginia, federal courtroom's witness stand, echoed earlier testimony from a tax accountant that Manafort opted to classify some of his income as nontaxable loans.

Meanwhile, as the tax trial of Donald J. Trump's former campaign manager continues, the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump's former personal attorney also could be facing tax evasion charges of his own.

The newspaper says investigators are assessing whether Michael Cohen under reported income from his taxi-medallion business. That income reportedly included hundreds of thousands of dollars received in cash and other payments over the last five years.

Taxable vs. nontaxable income: Prosecutors, defense attorneys and ultimately jurors will decide whether former Trump confidants evaded their tax responsibilities.

But the charges offer a good opening for us regular folks to review what the Internal Revenue Service considers taxable or nontaxable income.

Basically, Uncle Sam does get his cut of a lot of our money at tax time. But not all of it. Here's an overview of taxable, nontaxable and may be taxable income.

Taxable Income

Alimony. Alimony you receive from your ex-spouse is taxable income, but only through the end of this tax year. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), alimony payments won't be counted as taxable income for tax years 2019 through 2025. Also during those years, alimony payments will no longer be deductible by the payer.

Barter payments. Barter income is taxable. This means that if you, for example, build a cabinet system for your dentist in exchange for a root canal, you must pay tax on the fair market value of the dental services. Yeah, I know, tax insult added to dental pain.

Bonus from employer. If you receive a bonus, it is in most cases taxable income. Your boss should include the extra income on your W-2 form.

Canceled debt. You finally got out from under a big part of your debt when you convinced the lender to forgive it. Sorry, but the IRS isn't nearly as nice in these cases. In most instances, a debt that is canceled or forgiven is considered taxable income.

Cash. One of the biggest filing misconceptions is that cash, or at least some of it, is not taxable. Not true. All cash payments for your work are taxable, regardless of how much or little. The confusion comes from the IRS requirement that payers don't have to report such payments if they are less than $600. But that $599 in various dollar denominations you got for pool cleaning services is all taxable. Even if you don't get a 1099-MISC.

Gambling payouts. Gambling income is taxable at the federal level to the extent that it exceeds your gambling losses for the year. Some states, however, don't tax certain types of gambling proceeds.

Hobby income. Hobby income is taxable. You used to be able to deduct expenses incurred to participate in your hobby from any income it produced. But that was limited by the miscellaneous itemized expense threshold of 2 percent of your adjusted gross income. Now even that is gone, at least for tax years 2018 through 2025, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. If you are making money from your hobby, you might want to consider turning it into a business, where you'll have more expense deduction flexibility.

Interest and dividends. This investment income is known as unearned income. But it's still taxable. This is true even when you reinvest the dividends. So are profits you make, at capital gains tax rates, if you eventually sell the assets that are producing the interest and dividends. A key exception here is interest paid on certain government obligations, such as municipal bond interest. These amounts are not taxable by the federal government and, depending on where the bonds are issued, by some state tax departments.

Jury duty pay. Jury duty pay is taxable as miscellaneous income. If, however, you turn over your jury duty pay to your employer so that you were still paid while you were off the job serving on a jury, you can deduct that amount.

Side hustle earnings. You're still getting a regular paycheck, but you drive for an app-based transportation company or do odd jobs for your neighbors for a few extra bucks. That supplemental gig income is taxable. You might be able to reduce the amount somewhat by claiming legitimate side-hustle expenses. But don't try to just ignore these extra earnings.

Traditional retirement plan withdrawals. Money that goes into these accounts is made before taxes are computed. That means that you'll owe the tax that's been deferred while the retirement plan has been growing over the years. This applies to traditional IRAs and basic 401(k) company retirement plans.

Unemployment benefits. It's definitely no fun to lose your job. The only thing worse is that when you collect unemployment benefits, that money is taxable.

Not Taxable Income

Roth IRA withdrawals. You can take money from a Roth IRA without paying income tax in a couple of situations. First, since you paid tax on the money before you put it into a Roth retirement account, you can take that contributed money out at any time. As for the account's earnings, those are tax-free as long as you are at least age 59½ and have held the Roth IRA for at least five years. If you take the earnings out earlier, you'll owe a 10 percent penalty on these so-called early distributions.

Child Support. Money you receive that is designated as child support is not taxable. While tax law regarding alimony will change next year, the tax-free status of child support money will remain.

Combat pay. Combat pay is not subject to income tax.

Inheritance received. A lot of folks, swayed by political complaints about the misnamed death tax, think that the $10,000 Uncle Buck left them is taxable. It's not. All inheritances are tax-free, at least at the federal level. The estate tax is paid by just that, the estate a person leaves, before any heirs get their bequests. But be sure to check with your state tax department. A few states do tax the recipients of inheritances.

Maybe, maybe not taxable

Gain from the sale of a home. If you sell your home at a gain, up to $250,000 in profit (or $500,000 if you're married and file a joint tax return) is tax free. That means that most of us will never face a tax bill for selling our primary residence as long as we've owned and lived in the home for two of the last five years. However, if you're lucky enough to make an even bigger profit, the amount in excess of those exclusion amounts is taxable. But at least it's at the lower capital gains tax rates.

Social Security benefits. If your only source of retirement money is Social Security, those benefits aren't taxable. But if you have other income, either from a part-time job or your own savings or investments, depending on your income you could owe income tax on up to 85 percent of your Social Security benefits.

Court awards and damages. These are taxable depending on what the legal payments cover. Any awards you receive for lost pay, punitive damages, business damages or the like are taxable. But damages for physical injury or sickness or for emotional distress are tax-free.

Disability benefits. You generally pay tax on disability benefits if your employer paid the disability insurance premiums. However, if you paid the premiums yourself, the benefits are not taxable.

Garage sale proceeds. Most garage sale items go at bargain prices, meaning you sold them for less (usually much less) than what you originally paid for them. Since you don't make a profit on the yard sale items, then you don't have any taxable gain. If, however, you sell that painting Aunt Millie gave you and which turned out to be a portrait of her by a young Pablo Picasso (you knew she had a secret life!) for a nice sum, that gain is taxable, again at capital gains rates.

Gifts. A gift if just that. It's something you got from someone — often family, but also your very good friends — who just wanted to do something nice for you. In this case, Uncle Sam also does something nice. He says you don't owe tax on gifts you receive. This includes financial gifts, such as money to help you purchase your own home, or other assets, such as a family heirloom you can use to help furnish your new place.

More taxable or not situations: As this overview shows, there are lots of things to consider when it comes to taxable or nontaxable income.

A more complete collection is in IRS Publication 525, aptly name Taxable and Nontaxable Income. The current edition is up to date as far as 2017 taxes, but the IRS will issue an update with the TCJA changes. So bookmark the publication's web page and keep checking.

And remember, if you have any concerns about whether something is legally within the IRS' reach, talk with a tax professional.

It's always wiser and more cost-effective to get the pre-emptive tax help than have to hire a tax accountant or attorney later, like Manafort and possibly Cohen, to deal with IRS tax evasion questions.

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christophergill8 · 6 years ago