I did it!!! Y’all, thank you so much. I get so nervous doing these things because I’m afraid I’ll fuck it up.
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Nice!
And to answer your question, for what I do, exchanging just cuts out the middleman as you describe…I could accomplish the same thing selling and then buying but I’d lose at least a day in the middle while it sat in cash because the individual transactions each take a day (at least for my accounts). I believe there are some special rules for what you’re allowed to exchange vs sell-and-then-buy if you’re dealing with brokerage accounts, but I’ve never dealt with those so I can’t speak to them.
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Thanks @kenner that makes perfect sense!
In that case you may be hearing from me again @chaskavitch and if you ever need, IDK, shopping/cooking recs, hit me up! 
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The DEI group at my work is putting together a post for Disability Awareness Month in March (I hope next year it will be a month-long event) and we were talking about including a video about invisible disabilities. I’m going to look on Youtube to see what I can find (TED Talk? PSA?), but does anyone happen to know of any awesome resources that are easily consumable by laypeople?
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Not quite what you asked but my first though. Will come back with more later
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I think I know the answer to this, but am hoping someone has information that will help. I filed my federal return in early February and it was accepted by the IRS. About two days later, I received a letter from the IRS notifying me of interest that had been paid to me in 2021 (I amended the returns for two years and received refunds, and those refunds came with interest). So, now I’m guessing I have to file an amended return? The reason I ask is that the interest is only $48. I will owe $5 in additional tax and the whole amended return to pay $5 seems ridiculous. Obviously, I’ll do it if I have to, but is there any way to claim this income on my 2022 return? Or are there exceptions for amounts that are tiny?
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I would focus on people much higher on the disability index and dig into the research on that. You can start with some of these people/orgs. I think dividing it into invisible/visible is a false dichotomy since there are also lots of people in between that (like people who are sometimes ambulatory and sometimes not, people like me who look “almost” normal until you see them in certain clothes, etc. etc.). Non-disabled people have a very difficult time understanding variability day to day in condition, I’d make sure it touches on that (“omg why are you using a walker today?! you were fine yesterday, aren’t you getting better?!” etc.). I’d also make sure you consider intellectual disabilities (including things like low IQ but also things like autism), which are often left outside of the invisible disability conversation. I would lean toward individuals living with the thing versus advocacy orgs run by parents and healthcare workers, and I would especially avoid books/videos by people in those last two groups. I haven’t read every one of these but I know of them.
Invisible:
(^a disproportionate number of people with intellectual disabilities end up in prison, this is about that, might not be applicable but I feel pressure to present a full list of everything I can think of)
(this has both visible and invisible, again because I think seeing them as separate is mostly an external view? in the disability activism world it’s all one bucket IMO)
Visible:
I think another thing that would be great is a giant master list of famous/accomplished people with disabilities of alllllll kinds and through history. That’s a huge ah-ha for a lot of non-disabled people since usually they can only think (off the top of their heads) of people like hawking and helen keller. Make sure you include people who able people admire not just activists! If you need help creating a list on that I posted some of them in my post on the other thread and if you have trouble finding more I can find some for you. There are lots of lists out there though! I’d just beware if : Most of the people on the list became famous/accomplished and then as elderly people became disabled or if all the disabilities listed are super minor, like dyslexia.
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Just had another idea @meerkat , once you assemble your list of disabled people it would be great to have a slide (I assume this is a powerpoint or something) with tons of pictures of people with disabilities (all races, ages, visible, invisible, facial deformities, “normal” looking, etc) . Similar to the “this is what a feminist looks like” thing from the early 2000s, just to hammer home that it’s impossible to say someone doesn’t look or does look disabled since it’s not appearance-based. That might help hammer home the invisible thing!
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This is all gold, thank you.
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(I just filed anyway before I got some extra paperwork and I’m not going to file and amended return)
If the IRS cares they can chase me down
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My advice: Do nothing until your return processes. It’s likely the IRS computers will catch your oversight, and issue you a letter saying, We disagree with your return for the following reason, and what to do if you agree or disagree. If you have a refund coming, they will decrease the refund by the appropriate amount and you won’t need to do anything. If you owe, they will ask you to pay it, probably with a small penalty. Don’t send $5 now; even if they cash your check, they won’t “process” it until after they process your original return and it will just complicate things.
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I’m glad that you responded since you work with tax returns. I was hoping an IRS correction of my return would happen, but I’ve already gotten the refund deposited and they did not catch the missing interest (even though it was their interest!). So, amended return? Or is there any way to just add it to next year? Or do I wait for them to notice it? I’d like to file my state return, it’s ready to go, but I was waiting to see if they adjusted my refund.
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Interesting, I don’t have a good answer for you on that.
You could file an amended return (do you have to pay more to do that?), and then do your state taxes. Most people file both federal and state at the same time and would have to amend both returns. I don’t know if that will cause any problem if your state return is processed before the amended return and doesn’t match the numbers on the initial return.
I recall for returns that we file, there are certain error margins for the AGI and the tax due. As long as it’s within those limits, the return is accepted without a problem. I can’t remember what those numbers are and I don’t know if it applies to everyone. The $5 may be small enough that it doesn’t trigger an action by the IRS. After all, there are costs in sending the letter, tracking it, etc. I imagine there’s a point where the IRS just cuts their losses because it’s not worth it.
The IRS has three years to catch the error. If they do, I think they will apply penalties and interest. For a $5 bill, I don’t think it would be a lot - I recall it accrues by month, and there is an upper limit. Going on memory, but Failure to Pay was something like 0.5% up to a max of 25% or 75% or something like that. After all was said and done I think you would owe less than $10. But - I could be very wrong on that. We don’t figure interest or penalties at all, we let the IRS contact the taxpayer, so I have no actual experience on that.
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Thanks, this was really helpful. I had the same concern about amending federal and then having trouble filing my state return because they don’t match while the amended federal is being processed. I think I will file my state tax as is and then wait and see. If it were a larger amount, I’d be more proactive.
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While on the subject of taxes… Apparently I can’t do turbotax free because I have an HSA, upgrading to the deluxe will cost me $39 of my $52 refund. How do I do my taxes without using turbotax? Do I just get the fillable forms and follow along on what turbotax did already? I want to make sure to not mess this up, but also refuse to pay 80% of my refund just for one dumb form!
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I have done free fillable forms and just checked to make sure it matches what turbotax did.
I’ve also used Credit Karma Tax when it first came out - it was free. I see it is now rebranded as Cash App Tax. I haven’t tried this version but it says it is still free.
You can actually still print out the forms, fill them in, and mail them.
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Paper returns require a lot more processing time than electronically filed returns, so it may take a lot longer to get your refund if you go this route.
And you can mail the forms, but pay online if you owe.
As a millennial, 2 out of those 3 tasks scare me.
Good to know, if not particularly worrying in our case. It’s $50 we are expected to get back. Not enough to get super excited about.
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