#profit and loss statement

[blogtey45]

Jon Corteen Understands Profit, Value Systems, and Strategy

[damonp304]

Jon Corteen Understands Profit, Value Systems, and Strategy

🌟I've got a clear-ish vision of where I want to go, a fairly good idea of what I have to accomplish now and in the next....oh, three or four minutes...

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[definedge99]

"Understanding Exceptional Items on the Income Statement: Definition, Impact & Examples"

Exceptional items on an income statement are significant gains or losses from unusual, infrequent transactions, like asset sales or restructuring costs. They’re separate from regular operations, allowing clearer views of ongoing performance. Shown before net profit for transparency.

[constantineaccounting]

How to Read and Understand Your Small Business Financial Statements: A Step-by-Step Guide to Smart Decision-Making

Running a small business involves many moving parts, but few are as crucial as understanding your financial statements. These documents are the pulse of your business, providing insights into your company's financial health, performance, and growth potent

Running a small business involves many moving parts, but few are as crucial as understanding your financial statements. These documents are the pulse of your business, providing insights into your company’s financial health, performance, and growth potential. Yet, many small business owners find these statements confusing or overwhelming. This guide will demystify financial statements, showing…

[khoirri]

Lihat jasa dari freelancer ini! Jasa Pembuatan Laporan Keuangan seharga Rp 0. Gunakan jasanya sekarang di Fastwork https://fastwork.id/user/khoirri/financial-36347550?utm_source=app_sharing

[mfi-miami]

UWM Announces It's Expanding Its Bank Statement Loan Program

UWM Announces Major Expansion Of Its Popular Bank Statement Loan Programs.  Will UWM’s Bank Statement Program Be a Game Changer? Pontiac, Michigan based lender UWM Announced Wednesday that it intends on expanding its bank statement loan program. The plan is to provide additional flexibility and opportunities for independent mortgage brokers and self-employed borrowers. The UWM program will…

[cathkaesque]

So my house has persistent damp and mould problems. It has given me asthma. My suspicion is that it's because of an old coal shoot in the basement that lets in water. My landlord refused to look at this as it was for "ventilation".

A leak has sprung in my basement and it's now flooded. They've had to send in their guys to look at this. I show them the coal shoot and they instantly say that is obviously not acceptable. I have been trying to get them to look at this for about 4 years.

I stop and have a cup of tea with the repairmen. I learn more about the landord each time I speak with them. I knew my landlord (who presented themselves as a "group of small landlords" when I started looking to rent from them) had about 250 properties, but I didn't know the revenue from them was £45 million. I had tried quite hard, and failed, to find companies house statements for the landlord. Apparently the assets are held in a network of shell companies based in tax havens.

They tell me about how the property has been signed over to the landlord's daughter, a 27 year old fresh out of business school. She "hasn't got the human side of things down yet", she only sees profit and loss. The rent increase in the middle of the 20% inflationary period makes sense now. They show me her house - it's not too far from me, and is an actual castle with towers and everything. I live not too far from the richest part of town (second richest constituency outside of London - a 19 year life expectancy gap between the poorest in the city) and have sometimes been sent to a private hospital by the NHS not too far from there. I have gawped at that very castle wondering who on earth could afford to live there. I had no idea my rent was paying for it.

We both speak about the injustice of people living in small, rundown terrace houses paying for a mansion for a millionaire heiress. Soon after they leave, I have another asthma attack.

[txttletale]

Post/782177006889697280/i-think-artists-not-wanting-our-work-to-be-fed-to

This is absolutely a correct statement if it was just about personal remixes, but the context here is about businesses using other people's work without permission. It has nothing to do with whether or not you're allowed to remix it yourself. If a company has the means to use someone's work in a for-profit venture, then they have the means to pay someone for the product of their labour. These companies don't even use other people's IP in a novel way that bends IP law to create something that contributes to culture; the loss of culture if sellers of Redbubble t-shirts couldn't just take pictures from the internet and sell them for 40 bucks anymore would be negligible compared to, say, losing Lasgna Cat alone would be.

its already illegal for redbubble sellers to do that though. thats already not allowed. like thats already literally a copyright violation under current copyright law and guess what: because random people posting their fanart online don't have the money to afford a corporate lawyer, it just keeps happening and will keep happening, because copyright law never has and never will defended anyone but the wealthy. like this fantasy of your art as a Small Artist being protected by copyright law is just that, a fantasy, it doesn't happen and will never happen. you are completely detached from reality!

[fairuzfan]

My university refused to even utter the word Palestinian or anything in their singular statement (mentioning the unbearable loss that Jewish students must have experienced on October 7th). Even when approached by Palestinian students they doubled down and refused to offer any support even in the face of documented hate crimes with literal antipalestinian sentiment and violence towards palestinians and Muslims so yeah I'm sorry but right now the people suffering the most on college campuses are Palestinians first and foremost. And Palestinian students especially try to become doctors, engineers, nurses, or lawyers so the fact that they're profiting off their prestige while also completely ignoring them is the definition of anti-Palestinian.

[zooophagous]

Im finally doing my taxes (I have an extension shut up) and I have to do a profit and loss statement for my studio and oh my goddddddddd i remember why I avoided it forever now if i get any more bored Im gonna start killing people

[amorchai]

𝐉𝐈𝐌 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋.

pairing(s): jim halpert x reader

words: 802

warnings/tags: dwight being dwight, the whole office included, rival to lovers.

a/n: this is a repost from my old blog.

“can we move onto the topic of phyllis losing five of her clients this year, considering it’s phyllis, that leaves her with little to no clients left,” jim looked up from his yoghurt at dwight’s words. lunchtime in the office was never boring despite the eye-scraping job it was.

oscar and pam’s prior conversation about the new release of meryl streep’s ‘the devil wear’s prada’ is cut short as the whole room tunes in. glancing at phyllis, jim notices her dejected slump of shoulders before she replies, “that’s not fair dwight, there’s a reason that happened, michael’s aware.”

the group watch them like a tennis match, heads swinging back and forth as dwight knowingly jabs another response, “is it because your incompetent?” with a beat, dwight glances amongst the row of tables – prideful in his quick wit as he continues, “because you’re incompetent phyllis.”

jim perks up in his seat, desperate to derive the conversation before phyllis gets bob vance and causes dwight to threaten violence with his office-hidden samarai sword (that he always assures he’s a professional at handling), “speaking of loss of clients…”

you look up from your lunch and to jim who sits beside you, groaning knowingly while the office atmosphere changes from tension to more playful. he smirks at you, “y/n and i had a competition of new clients, and guess who won?” he leans back in his seat proudly.

“only because you offered them much more than you needed to, where’s the profit, halpert?” you quip back, both of you unaware of the exchanged glances from everyone but dwight around the room who just fills his expression with disgust.

“you were hardly offering them anything, i wouldn’t have joined if i was a client myself, after the way you were pitching,” you gasp with a choked laugh at his words – while dwights one-liners were incredibly offensive and sad-inducing, aimed towards phyllis, both of you knew the words between each other were less hurtful and more teasing.

totally not flirting.

“you two make me sick, why don’t you go into the printer room and make out so you can get it over with and we don’t have to watch this insufferable tension?” you both turn to dwight as he stands, jim’s cheeks turning a shade pinker while your jaw hits the ground, “us? make out?”

“don’t pretend, jim,” dwight states, adjusting the belt on his trousers before trudging out of the office, leaving silence behind while you are both unsure what to do.

both of you laugh, nervously more than anything, and only convincing each other of the denial of something being there while everyone nods knowingly, the pining going on for far too long and the bets ongoing as they waited on the ‘we’re together’ statement.

you found yourself in that very printer room later on, a large sum of papers in the queue while you press a load of buttons in hopes it works without needing to call pam in.

the door clicks and your head snaps around to the tall, scruffy-haired man who lips press into a thin-line smile, which you return before awkwardly turning back to the whirring machine. jim walks to another printer, the one directly beside yours and you pretend you can’t see the continuous glances.

“so that was crazy, right?” jim starts before letting out a nervous huff. “what?” you faux, pretending you’re too immersed in the printing world to care – but your head is dizzy with the prior statements your colleague made. you weren’t sure how much longer you could deny your attraction for jim.

“what dwight said. about us?” you force a laugh out in response, agreeing with his statement but pretending the ache in your heart is apparent and pushing against your chest. “well, do you want to just forget about it?”

you didn’t, but asking the question meant it looked like you did. you could both move onto your normal selves – making teasing and totally not flirtatious quips to each other and hidden tension.

he doesn’t answer, the only sound is the buttons beeping with each press of your fingertip, “jim?” you ask again into the quiet cramped room. again, no reply. you furrow your eyebrows, turning your head to check on him but he’s facing you, eyes which fall on your eyes quickly change to your lips.

before you knew it, your fingers were pulling the strands of hair at the nape of his neck while jim had you pressed against the printer, leaving tingling traces against your lips each kiss. he doesn’t stop, and you don’t want him to – pressing closer to him and allowing him to lean down so his arms can wrap around your back, kisses moving to your neck affectionately.

“i’ll take that as a no.”

you can’t believe dwight was right.

amorchai masterlist . taglist form

amorchai © ─ all rights reserved. no reposting/translating/copying will be tolerated.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Case Study

Case Study - a highly detailed analysis of a particular subject, usually involving multiple sets of quantitative data observed over a period of time that allow researchers to draw conclusions in the context of the real world.

Throughout the years, the results of case study research have given us a greater and more holistic understanding in fields such as medicine, political and social sciences, and economics.

Researchers have used case studies to explore relationships between variables and a central subject, whether that subject be a human's reaction to medication, a country’s reaction to an economic crisis, or the effect of pesticides on crops over a period of time.

This methodology relies heavily on data collection and qualitative research to answer hypotheses in multiple fields.

Types of Case Studies

There are several different kinds of case studies. Here are a few:

Illustrative case study: Researchers use observations on every angle of a specific case, generally resulting in a thorough and deep data analysis.

Exploratory case study: Primarily used to identify research questions and qualitative methods to explore in subsequent studies, this type of case study is frequently in use in the field of political science.

Cumulative case study: This type relies on the analysis of qualitative data gathered over a range of timelines, which can draw new conclusions from old research methodology or studies.

Critical instance case study: Used to answer questions about the cause and effects of a particular event, critical instance case studies are helpful in cases that pose unique perspectives on otherwise established truths.

Marketing case study: This type of case study evaluates the quantifiable results of a marketing strategy, new product, or other business decision.

Examples of Case Studies

Here are a three examples of case studies in different fields:

Content marketing: In the marketing context, case studies typically explain how the business responded to the needs of a certain client, and whether or not the response was effective. Since these types of case studies are a tool to attract new customers rather than to merely share information, they should contain clear headings, attractive fonts, and infographic data that is easy to interpret.

Neuroscience: The tragic case of Phineas Gage allowed researchers to observe the changes in behavior and personality he experienced after surviving a horrific railroad accident that damaged parts of his brain. This led to a better understanding of the relationship between our frontal lobe and emotional functioning. This type of research is an example of a case study that would be impossible to ethically replicate in a laboratory, but nonetheless was a breakthrough in neuroscience and health care.

Psychoanalysis: Modern talk therapy owes much to the individual case of Anna O, otherwise known as Bertha Pappenheim. While living in Vienna in 1880, she began experiencing severe hallucinations and mood swings. Joseph Bruer, a pioneer in psychoanalysis, took Bertha under his care, and after multiple sessions where she discussed her inner emotional state and fears with Bruer, her symptoms waned. This case study is often seen as the first successful example of psychoanalysis.

Benefits of a Case Study

A case study can allow you to:

Collect wide-reaching data: Using a case study is an excellent way to gather large amounts of data on your subject, generally resulting in research that is more grounded in reality. For example, a case study approach focused on business research could have dozens of different data sources such as expense reports, profit and loss statements, and information on customer retention. This collected data provides different angles you can use to draw conclusions in a real-life context.

Conduct studies in an accessible way: You do not need to work in a lab to conduct a case study. In a number of cases, researchers use case study methodology to study things that cannot be replicated in a laboratory setting, such as observing the spending habits of a group of people over a period of months.

Reduce bias: Since case studies can capture a variety of perspectives, researchers’ own preconceptions on a subjects have less of an influence.

See connections more clearly: Through case studies, you can track paths of positive or negative development, which makes specific results repeatable, verifiable, and explainable.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Justo Robles and Gloria Oladipo at The Guardian:

Thousands of Afghans who fled to the US as the Taliban grabbed power again in Afghanistan are in mortal dread of being deported back to danger in the coming weeks amid the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown. Many, including some who assisted US forces in Afghanistan before the botched withdrawal by the military in 2021, are contending with threats to their legal status in the US on several fronts. Donald Trump revoked safeguards from deportation for those in the US covered under temporary protected status (TPS), by taking Afghanistan off the list of eligible countries then, not long after, put Afghanistan on the list of countries affected by the revamped travel ban.

Afghans are also affected by Trump’s refugee ban and that all comes amid almost daily news of stepped-up arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) affecting undocumented immigrants and also many with a legal status, from Central and South America, parts of Africa and Asia and other regions, caught in the dragnet and sending terror rippling through other communities. Shir Agha Safi, the executive director of Afghan Partners in Des Moines, a non-profit in Iowa where there are 500 families who evacuated from Afghanistan to escape the re-empowered Taliban, said members of his community are “traumatized because they have seen what happened to Venezuelan immigrants in other states”. The loss of TPS for Afghans, which also provides employment authorization, goes into effect on 14 July. With the government’s announcement, Safi said some in his community are too afraid to speak openly but had told him “they would choose suicide over being tortured and killed by the Taliban”.

Asked to elaborate, he said: “They have said this because the Taliban is still there and if you send an Afghan back to Afghanistan that would mean a death penalty.” The US government initially granted Afghans in the US TPS in 2022, because the Biden administration agreed that it was too risky for them to return to Afghanistan due to the armed conflict and political turmoil that has forced millions to flee the country. Even before Trump returned to the White House their foothold in US society was uncertain. Now the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argues that Afghanistan is safe to go back to. “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,” homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said in a recent statement. The department cited rising tourism as a factor, with the Federal Register’s item about revoking TPS for Afghans saying “tourism to Afghanistan has increased, as the rates of kidnappings have reduced”. It quotes that from a US Institute of Peace report that assessed conditions three years after the Taliban took back control and does include that sentence – but the majority of the report describes negative conditions in poverty-stricken Afghanistan, where “the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of force, where justice is not administered in courts but meted out through fear and violence”. The US state department website, meanwhile, puts the country in the highest-risk advice category for US citizens, warning: “Do not travel to Afghanistan due to civil unrest, crime, terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping, and limited health facilities.”

The Trump Regime’s foolish removal of TPS for Afghans who fled Taliban rule is an insult to common sense.

[cy-cyborg]

I swear Centrelink’s goal is to just be the most time-wasting government organisation 🤦

I went into the office in person 3 weeks ago to report income from my commissions, which is how I was told to declare the income last time I asked about it.

I explained how the income had been acquired (custom artwork via the internet) and why there was no abn attached (if you’re self employed, you’re supposed to have your own, if you have a normal job, whoever pays you should have one). After explaining it they said I don’t really fit in any category they have, so go home and they’ll call me when they know what to do, but it’s on my file that I tried to report so I won’t get into trouble at least.

A week later, they call and said that I need to register as self-employed, but an abn won’t be needed (yet). All they need is a profit and loss statement and a form. Easy, I did the same form for my partner’s door dash income and it’s pretty simple, and there aren’t exactly a lot of profits or losses for 3 digital-only commissions so that’s also simple. However, they told me on the profit and loss form to include things like electricity and internet costs as losses. I don’t exactly know how to calculate that so I decide to go to a tax agent for help, since what I submit to Centrelink needs to match what I will submit to the ATO later anyway, at least roughly, so it’s easier to do that now and get the more accurate numbers.

It takes a week to get in, the tax agent chats with me for 5 minutes and says she’s not entirely sure why Centrelink is asking me to do this, in the ATO’s eyes I don’t qualify to be a business yet and I wouldn’t qualify by centrelink’s definition yet either. I can register now if I really want to but it won’t be worth it until I’m making a more regular income. She also said she can give me a profit and loss statement but once again, it’s not really worth it and she’d have to charge me more than what I’ve made in total, so she highly suggests I don’t do that, and go back to Centrelink. Also they gave me the wrong form because of course 🙃.

I’m getting really confused at this point, and hear my explanations to each person getting more and more jumbled (which happens when I’m overwhelmed) so I wait until my support worker is there to go back in, since she’s helped me with Centrelink before and is getting good at understanding me when I get overwhelmed lol.

We go in, relay what the tax agent said and showed them the documents from the ATO that backup what I’m saying said to the person at Centrelink. The worker sighs, apologises and says that I was right the first time, I didn’t need to do any of this and the income should have just been reported when I came in last time. She confirmed that with her supervisor just to be sure and then wrote me a note with a big offical stamp on it to give to any other Centrelink worker who tries to say this is incorrect in the future, because it will happen again due to some vague wording in the rules they have to follow 🤦 she’s left a note in my file about it but people don’t always check so the paper note is a backup.

It took 3 week but I finally declared my commission income once it was all sorted out and hopefully the next time I go back it will be simpler…