#obbb

if you havent seen the new tax deductions from the hastily implemented OBBB (One Big Buncha Bullshit), look them up and see if you qualify. not everyone does, but for some people theyre huge. tax deductions=More Money For You

I am seeing so many people who have no idea what these deductions are/how they work. I will note beforehand that these all have ifs ands ors nors and buts to consider, plus limits on how much youre allowed to deduct, but the big new things that i expect tumblr might care about this year are:

No tax on the "and a half" portion of OVERTIME PAY (aka "if you worked qualified overtime hours where you were paid "time and a half", you can deduct 1/3 of it up to the limit")

No tax on tips up to $25,000. For people who work in restaurants, bars, wherever tips are common basically.

Additional deduction for seniors over 65 (very relevant to the majority of tumblr, obviously)

no tax on car loan interest for new cars (not used) bought in 2025 which underwent final assembly in the United States (and a lot of other blah blah blah) (this ones confusing tbh so many qualifications. just. google this shit.)

"tax deductions"= you PAY LESS TAXES and get a BIGGER REFUND. refund is the money the government gives you BACK.

If this post gets notes and theres anyone who wants me to go into detail on any of them i can but the short version is all these deductions are on a new schedule, Schedule 1-A, which looks like shit and has awful instructions but it may mean big money dollars in your bank account.:

(again idk if this will get actual notes but maybe i can make more posts to explain what the FUCK this all means in detail for anyone who doesnt speak 1040 if anyone asks. Theres a buncha weird looking math here but summary is each one has a maximum amount youre allowed to deduct, and income limits before the deductions start dropping. If youre below those limits no prablem 👍 above the limits uh oh math!! but if u use a tax software it does it for you.)

I am seeing so many people who are confused about these new deductions and how they work, dont even know they exist, dont realize theres a new form for it, etc. So. PSA!

Hear me out for just a couple minutes.

I had a good dad once. He was a present dad. He woke me up at night because he made brownies too close to bed time but promised I could have one. I have videos of my dad playing in the sprinkler with me. I have photos of my dad helping my sister climb up a mountain. I had a good dad once.

My dad was in the military and served his country for 20 years. Twenty. My dad was deployed to Iraq right after 9/11. Twice. My dad once surprised me by coming to visit from Iraq over my birthday. I have pictures of me SOBBING because he surprised me right after I blew out the candles. My mom was the mom who adopted platoons and sent care packages with hundreds of dollars worth of food and goodies from home. I wrote letters to them and cried to God Bless the U.S.A. My dad carried the names of people I could never meet on bracelets.

But my dad came back from that a broken man. I no longer had a present dad or a dad who played in the sprinkler. I had a dad who couldn't watch fireworks on the forth of July. I had a dad who's back had to be against a wall. One who cringed saying thank you when we brought him his favorite food on his birthday.

My dad left my mom after 20 years together. He couldn't handle being a dad or husband anymore. My dad cheated on my mom and he refused to pay a single bill from that day forward. We lost the beautiful house my parents bought together, and my mom and us 4 children had to move into an apartment building where someone got shot. It was all she could afford. I cried once because I invited a friend over and I was humiliated because our lights wouldn't turn on - again. I went from having my own computer in my room to going to friends' houses to do homework because the internet got turned off.

My mom was halfway through her degree when my dad left. We moved back to Texas to be near my grandma so my mom could have help getting us to and from school, but her university was in Kentucky. We drove the 8 hours both ways every weekend so she could attend her classes and finish her degree. My mom did her best to find a job in our small town, but it was 2009 and she couldn't find a job. Everyone was laying people off. She took a $9/hr job selling ads for the Pennysaver just to afford rent. It was the only place that would hire her. We only made it because student loans helped her pay our bills.

After she graduated and we didn't have the student loans to help anymore, we moved into my grandma's two extra rooms. She shared a bedroom with my 2 younger brothers (aged 13 and 9) on a 2 person bunkbed while she was kind enough to let me sleep in the room by myself so the boys weren't invading my privacy. As it turns out, being fresh out of college doesn't pay well either.

So me and my brothers were the kids who didn't have lunch money. I'm the kid that got two jobs as soon as I was old enough so my younger brothers didn't know we didn't have food in the house. I gave my brothers $50 a week each to get lunch. I paid for my brother's field trips. I bought them clothes. I never even told my mom about it. She was doing her best.

My dad was absent for all of this, by the way. My once present dad left my brothers crying on the curb of the gas station where they were supposed to meet for visitation. Multiple times. My dad only paid child support because they started taking it directly out of his retirement after he refused to pay it willingly. The $800 was, in fact, not enough to cover food, clothing, and every other need for 4 children.

Only after all of this did my mother finally cave and apply to get on SNAP. Nothing changed for us. We barely qualified for assistance, but it was the difference many nights between eating and not for my brothers after I moved out.

So, what say you to me and my family? Did we not pull ourselves up by our bootstraps enough? Did we not do everything we possibly could to make it? Did we not work the jobs that were offered? Did I not give up enough of my childhood for it? Did my mom not work hard enough? Did she not do everything she could to better our lives? Did we not use every one of our able bodies to do what we could? Did we not pay enough taxes? Were we useless, lazy liberals? Were we in a state that just gives handouts to any old person who asks for it? Did we not fucking BLEED red, white, and blue? Were we traitors to our country? Did we not lose our entire world so my dad could fight for you? Should my mom have kept her legs closed if she didn't want to suffer? Should she have picked a better man? What say you? Did my family not deserve to eat?

Think about that for a second, because my mom's story is not unique or even uncommon. That's how quick it can happen. That's how undeserved the hunger can be. That's how you go from living comfortably to living in poverty. That's how close you are to needing help every single day. You're one cheating spouse away. You're one disability, one illness, one injury, one death, one divorce, one lay off, maybe even just one bad month away from being my family.

We were not the exception to the rule. We are the average SNAP beneficiaries. My mom is so many of the moms on SNAP. My siblings and I are so many of the kids eating because of SNAP.

President Trump. Promises Made, Promises Kept. OBBB

Screaming this into the void until I perish on this hill like the old guard: