Our Balloon Juice community is amazing isn’t it? We met $60,000 goal for Betty in less than 24 hours!
Wedding photo, as promised. More than one person asked for it!
This morning, even before we hit $50k, Betty wrote to ask us to please not put up another GoFundMe (GFM) post on the front page. So we didn’t!
There were a lot of questions and concerns raised in John’s post last night. I’ll address the ones I remember, but if I haven’t answered your question, chime in with your question in the comments.
- Does GFM accept donations after the goal is met? Yes.
- Are we free to post the link to the GFM on other blogs and on social media? Yes.
- Are we shutting down the GoFundMe once we reach the goal? We normally do, but in this case, no.
- Will the GFM still be live when you get paid on the 1st of the month? Yes.
- Do we plan to do a second GFM for Betty at a later date? Not in the plans. But no one knows what the future might hold.
- Will we increase the goal amount? Unclear. GFM takes 3% off the top.
Then takes out 20% in taxes. So it takes $65k in the GFM to put $50k in Betty’s hands. This was true in the past, but may no longer be the case. - What about flowers? If you are interested in thinking about flowers, send email to WaterGirl.
Betty thinks we have done more than enough, and I think it’s fair to say that she is blown away by the response. Do we agree that we have done enough? I think donations will tell the tale.
Okay, new subject.
I hope we can take to heart what Betty said in her Monday post:
I hope y’all will understand that I don’t have any plans to provide much further detail on this. My illness necessarily consumes so much of my life already. I’d love to have one digital oasis, populated by friends (and frenemies), where it doesn’t dominate the conversation. This could be that place!
To that end, I’d like to point you to this in the sidebar.
Betty Cracker’s Corner
Astonished. Overwhelmed. Verklempt.
Trying to find words, which usually come easily but have deserted me this Wednesday morning. As I said in my personal news post, my focus now is to survive this and to minimize the effect my illness has on my family.
The first part is my job, and I am newly buoyed in that effort by your unexpected (by me) outpouring of love and support. The second part of that burden – and to me the heaviest — has also been lightened by my generous friends, and I will never find the words to adequately express my gratitude for that.
I want to sculpt and hand-deliver individual butter lambs for each and every one of you, but that seems impractical just now, so these words will have to do: Thank you. I love you.
Open thread.
SpaceUnit
Betty, we just wanted you to know you’re not just some crazy-ass swamp lady.
Dammit, you’re OUR crazy-ass swamp lady!
Jerry
I’m creating a new law of the universe right here and now:
No woman that has ever written for, is writing for, and will write for Balloon Juice is allowed to die. They are much too valuable to this universe to ever shuffle off this mortal coil. More like, this immortal coil for them.
cain
Just shows that we are legion. 60k in less than 24 hours – that’s a lot of love. Happy to do this again for the next round.
Kristine
This place.
To Cole and all the front-pagers—thank you for all you have done to build BJ. I’ve yet to run across anyplace else like it. It is quite special.
Old School
I’m not shocked that the goal was met as quickly as it was. Everyone loves Betty.
I am shocked that Bill wore white.
WaterGirl
@Old School: I think Bill pulled off the white, in spades. He looks quite dashing!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Once again, this is Teh Awesome. Yeah, it’s the worst kind of lemon but at least for now, there’s some lemonade to go around.
Scout211
Thanks for the updates, WaterGirl.
Both of your links go to Betty’s Valley of the Shadow post. I think you meant for the second one to go to the GoFundMe?
Old School
@WaterGirl: I agree. He looks good, but I was taught that only the bride wears white at a wedding.
Google pulls up pictures that times are changing on that, but I’m pretty sure Betty’s wedding was last century. That’s quite groundbreaking for then.
DianeB
This is wonderful and truly deserved by Betty (the $, not the health issues). I am so proud to lurk amongst such fantastic people.
Steve in the ATL
@Old School: @WaterGirl: he even pulled off the chin mullet!
Steve in the ATL
@Old School: the rules are different in Florida. There is an excellent chance that he was wearing white loafers as well.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: I swear I fixed that last night!
Apparently I had fixed it in the sidebar but not in the part I had copied to the post! Fixed now. In both places. :-)
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: He really did. That is one handsome fellow!
Mai Naem mobile
@Steve in the ATL: so not the white go go DeShantyhead boots?
stinger
This. So much this. I know people tend to comment about it in whatever thread they may be in when they learn the news, but hopefully that will taper off soon.
@Old School: My brother got married in 1972. A tall drink of water (6’2″) in a white tux next to his 5’1″ bride, also in white. I think the rule is that the bride is the only woman in white.
WaterGirl
@stinger: Maybe we can all help remind one another in the comments when that happens. Nicely point the person to Betty Cracker’s Corner. :-)
Seriously, who hasn’t gotten the “when are you getting married” or “when will you finish your thesis” or “when are you going to have kids” questions that are terribly unwelcome. Take that feeling and multiply it x1000.
Steve in the ATL
@Mai Naem mobile: well, if he went shrimping in between the ceremony and the reception….
Soprano2
I laughed when I saw people thinking it might take a couple of months to meet the goal. I knew it would be three days, tops. Betty, we’ve all got your back and are rooting for you!
SiubhanDuinne
I think that Betty posted a wedding picture, several years ago now, but I don’t recall whether it was this exact photo or a different one. I do remember thinking she was adorable, and I am thinking so all over again.
And yes, Bill’s also pretty damned cute.
catclub
Great going people!
knittingbull
I followed Ms. Cracker over from Rumproast blog, had no idea who this John Cole was. Found an awesome community and have treasured every post from Betty. Needless to say no one else (aside from Wonkette) has the ability to generate such fantastic titles for bottom dwelling individuals like The Orange Shitstain and the senators (spit) from FL.
Cracker posts are a very important part of the daily routine. We love you, Betty.
karen marie
@Old School: He’s standing there with a full plate, looking at hers like he’s going to eat that too.
Odie Hugh Manatee
You’re welcome, Betty. It’s clear that we love you too and it is the least we can do for you. One thought is that if John hadn’t taken a left turn in life then he wouldn’t have been here to do this for you. And thank you for this John and WaterGirl.
It’s funny how little things like a change of mind are like ripples from a stone being thrown in a pond.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, it was this one. 7 years or so ago, I think.
Elizabelle
I love that we get virtual butter lambs.
I ask you, where else would you find that?
JaySinWA
I don’t understand the 20% withholding part.
I can’t find anything that claims tax withholding by GFM, in fact it claims none is withheld from individuals and that donations are considered gifts.
GFM donations are not tax deductible for donors unless they are going to a recognized charity.
https://www.gofundme.com/c/pricing
https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/204295498-Taxes-for-Organizers
Is this information not factual?
I hope it is factual and Betty gets the full amount (less 3.2% in fees)
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA: GFM has withheld 20% on the others we have done; I assume they will on this one, as well.
Either way, Betty has to pay taxes on the income.
pika
Thank you for underscoring all of this clearly, WG
knittingbull
@Elizabelle: I would like to request a virtual butter German shepherd, we lost our girl last November and she LOVED butter
kindness
This is awkward. I’ve read Betty for years. Always appreciated the Florida-centric views on things. Yea, Betty is the anti-Floridah Woman we more commonly read about. That’s one of the reasons I enjoyed her posts. Mortality though…..makes me flash back to the few months before my wife crossed over that bridge. Cancer. Such a horrible thing. We all go there eventually but blocking that notion out is our preferred status (or at least mine). Keep the faith Betty. We’ll try to do the same.
Seanly
I posted a long note in her original post & missed the one for the GoFundMe. Figured it wasn’t fair to help fund Rosie’s cancer treatments and not Betty’s :)
I hope my words about what my wife & I went through & learned through her leukemia (which was her 2nd cancer but was like the NFL to the lymphoma’s Pop Warner), didn’t scare the Jeebus out of her.
Villago Delenda Est
Keep fighting, Betty. We’re behind you all the way.
Elizabelle
@knittingbull: My condolences. May a butter GSD, virtual or otherwise, be in your future.
Old School
@JaySinWA:
It appears Joe Biden fixed that.
chrisanthemama
You guys, you are so beautiful.
WaterGirl
We are back up, but they might have to restart Balloon Juice again, so not to worry if you get the error again.
Old School
@WaterGirl: I was anxiously trying to remember the name of the other site.
JaySinWA
@Old School: I suspect she’s thinking about the Paypal and Venmo backup withholding (currently 24%) for goods and services that John was hit with when donations were miscategorized.
In any case Betty should get her tax advice from an expert, certainly not me. I would be unpleasantly surprised if these were categorized as taxable income and not tax-free gifts.
Mart
@Old School: Wife picked white for the guys. We forgot about socks. You could see the red and blue tube sock stripes in a lot of the photos…
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Was there a mini Armageddon?
OldDave
@WaterGirl: For me PC based access is working, but Safari on my cell phone continues to die the death of 1000 screams.
rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)
That is beyond fantastic. I knew our jackals were generous, but this leaves me flabbergasted! One of the worst parts of dealing with a health crisis is the financial aspect. I hope Betty and Mr. Cracker can sleep a little easier now.
Betty, I continue to send good vibes your way. My brother was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and stage 3 colon cancer in 2021. They gave him 3-4 months to live. 3 years later the lymphoma is gone and the colon cancer went into remission but then came back to stage 2. Yet now he’s went back to work and doing very well, especially for a 60yo guy with COPD. I have faith that you will beat this monster :)
I literally have no money to donate, but I would love to help in some other way, if possible.
Baud
@OldDave:
Android cell here. No issues.
RevRick
@cain: This effort reminds me of what the last church I served accomplished over a 19-year period. It began when we held a fundraiser for a young couple in our church struggling financially because of her lupus treatments (mostly medications). It was a six-hour affair, which featured live entertainment, food sales, silent and “Chinese” auctions, and raffling off some quality yard-care equipment, items for which were donated by local businesses. The committee in charge set an initial goal of $5,000 and raised $8,400.
Those involved said “let’s do that again,” so I was charged with scouring the community for a worthy candidate, not an easy task.
The following year I was leading an ecumenical refugee sponsorship in our community (from Bosnia), and through those contacts I was connected with another couple financially struggling because of medical bills from maintaining his kidney transplant (he had congenital kidney failure). The effort became more sophisticated, and this time we raised $14,000. So, let’s do it again.
The third year, I again scoured the community for months to find a candidate, only to learn in a passing conversation at a funeral with a member of a woman who had received the ominous diagnosis of amyloidosis and was in isolation at Sloan-Kettering following experimental stem cell treatments. The third year, we raised over $18,000.
By the fourth year, word had spread through the community about what our small church was doing, and we ended up raising money for three different families, all struggling financially because of various chronic illnesses and conditions. That year we raffled off a Harley and raised about $40,000. This effort continued until COVID, but by 2020, that church had assisted 61 families, raising $1,000,000 on their behalf.
The church closed on April 28th due to dwindling numbers, but in my opinion they went out in a blaze of glory.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, he looks like one dapper dude in that pic. I’ll bet he still is a dapper fellow, even if his hair surely has a bit more gray.
Brachiator
RE. GoFundMe…
But hell yeah, Betty should check with a tax advisor to verify the rules.
I looked at the GoFundMe for Betty and saw that the amount was now 63,000. I am not sentimental, but I got tears in my eyes.
I hope this helps.
She is truly a treasure.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA: No, “she’s” thinking what happened with the previous GoFundMe fundraising.
cain
@RevRick:
See, that’s the kind of thing religious institutions should be doing and championing. Way to go!
WaterGirl
@Baud: Routine maintenance with an unexpected reaction – PHP broke and they had to fix it.
WaterGirl
@OldDave: It’s back up now, right?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I thought they did that in the middle of the night. Anyway, I’ve seen no issues on my phone.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
I’m tempted to file a gift tax return on my donation, which would establish that it is a gift and not income for tax purposes. That shouldn’t be necessary, but if it is, I can do that.
(Unless your gifts, and later on the estate you leave behind, run into eight figures, the Federal tax is zero. Ditto for most states.)
RevRick
@cain: Thank you. The backstory of how it came to be in the first place is…. Interesting.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t think you have to do that unless you gave $17k or more to Betty. :-)
WaterGirl
@Baud: Doubtful! :-) I think it’s the backup that runs in the middle of the night.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
This is not necessarily the case. I made a note about this a bit earlier.
Betty should consult a tax professional about this. But if the contributions are a gift, they may not be taxable.
The basic IRS reference on the issue is here.
O. Felix Culpa
@WaterGirl: It doesn’t appear to be current information. I just read through GoFundMe’s Terms of Service and found the following:
Other parts leave all issues regarding tax liability/payment/reporting to the user. So it looks like Betty should get the entire amount, apart from the platform’s percentage.
Edited.
Ruckus
@Old School:
I haven’t been to a wedding in some time but even with my many decades old noggin I can remember grooms in white. I’m actually having a hard time thinking of one in any other color.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I’m just a simple caveman lawyer. Your technology frightens and confuses me.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
Unless you gave over, what, $17K, you don’t owe gift tax.
WaterGirl
@O. Felix Culpa: Yep, that’s what Jay was saying above. i sent Betty the information.
For our past GoFundMe fundraising, they did withhold for taxes. But it seems like Joe Biden’s law in 2022 may have changed that.
O. Felix Culpa
@WaterGirl: My comment cites GoFundMe’s specific language regarding tax withholdings, in agreement with Jay.
OldDave
@WaterGirl: My earlier attempts were “from the top”, where parts of many articles are painted (I was looking for John’s “A Friend In Need” post). That was giving my cell fits. Just now I clicked on the top article, and then started working my way back one article at a time. That seems ok. And now the “top level” view is working for at least the first two pages, so yes, the site appears to be working.
WaterGirl
@OldDave: Thank you!
MomSense
So thoughtful to create a dedicated space. I totally get it. Sometimes when you are going through it, you want a place where you don’t have to.
I had an idea for a shawl last night thinking of Betty C. I’m going to try to find my yarn this weekend and knit it. I have some pale blue cashmere lace and a dream of peaceful water and sky.
Bupalos
BC is just a legit writer. I could go on and on about what I don’t really find anywhere else on the internet than in a BC post, but one thing that stands out to me is that she offers a sense of place and the kind of embarrassed love that makes it real. I read her stuff and think “that’s the same way I feel about my place.” When you make an ice-crusted sap-steamed northerner like me think good thoughts about Florida swamp-life…you did a thing.
If she hadn’t been too busy throwing her pearls before these internet swine, she’d have royalties coming out of her eyes, out of her wherever. If we cobbled together a BJ-BC best-of compendium from these pearls, we could make even more bank for this badass lady.
Bupalos
@WaterGirl: Hopefully her major medical expense deduction gets her a big chunk of that back. I mean I assume when we say GFM holds that 20% for taxes we mean it’s going to the IRS and counts as a tax payment cracker made against an expected tax liability.
Ksmiami
@Bupalos: my fave, the parade bug costume swat down
WaterGirl
@MomSense: It sounds lovely!
WaterGirl
@Bupalos: I am not a tax person, so I am not even going to speculate.
And if GoFundMe is no longer sending the tax forms to the IRS, then it really is a big deal.
Bupalos
@Brachiator: Yeah I was thinking these should be under gift. No question.
I don’t know if it’s a problem when no one on the giving end is claiming the gift, which really they’re supposed to do, against their cumulative lifetime exemption that deducts from the estate tax?
Suzanne
Absolutely thrilled to see that the goal has been met. It is the least we can do.
OzarkHillbilly
I never even knew there was a fundraiser.
Bupalos
@Brachiator: As I understand it you don’t “owe gift tax” as a giver until the cumulative amount given that exceeded 17k a year itself exceeds your lifetime gift exclusion which is…. a fuck-ton. I think it’s the estate tax exemption which is well over 14 million at this point.
And I think if it meets the IRS definition of gift, the receiver never owes anything, a gift is simply not income. Can GFM meet the IRS definition of gift? No idea whatsoever. It should.
Call out to a BJ tax person which we really MUST have here, no? Get Betty her whole nut here.
Rob
I haven’t commented in a long while, not that I ever commented much to begin with. I too am thrilled that the goal was exceeded, and in less than a day. Betty is the front pager who makes me laugh the most.
Jackie
@Kristine:
You voiced my thoughts perfectly. This place is truly unique and populated by wonderful, caring jackals.
Brachiator
@Bupalos:
Generally not an issue if the gift is less than 17k per each donor.
ETA. I’ve been doing taxes and teaching taxation since 1982.
Bupalos
@Brachiator: Yes, I forgot there’s an annual exemption to the lifetime exemption.
The only real question here is this being IRS defined as a gift. No reason I can see that it shouldn’t be and no reason it should be taxable in the end.
Bupalos
I tell people this all the time and they refuse to believe it. Such has been the success of the oligarchic scare machine designed to eliminate taxes on those “small farms and businesses” worth over…what is it now… 15 million?
Chief Oshkosh
Just hit $65k, so BC should see $50k of that. :)
Jackie
@O. Felix Culpa:
If that holds true, that’s wonderful news for Betty and Bill! 🤞🏻🤞🏻
Bupalos
@Brachiator: Just noticed now that you are the tax person I’m calling for and are already on this! Thank you!
Bupalos
@Chief Oshkosh: Cracker is going to roll around in the full 65K I predict.
Which is mostly going to be for horrible substances that make her feel like shit, but still.
Brachiator
@Bupalos:
I provided some references earlier. I don’t see an issue.
The amount should be reported on the tax return and backed out. Tax software programs also provide a place for an explanation. This explanation would be part of an electronically filed return. This could also be done with a paper filed return.
Should be no problem. I noted that the actual tax professional involved would do the research, but should arrive at the same conclusion, I think.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: It went up yesterday. It’s still going on, if you’re so inclined. The link is in the sidebar.
Chief Oshkosh
@Bupalos: Even mo’ betta’! :)
Kayla Rudbek
@stinger: my parents were married in the 1970s and my dad wore a blue tuxedo jacket. Not navy blue, a distinctive medium to light blue. I don’t think he was smoking anything other than nicotine, but Madison Avenue certainly was smoking something…
Kayla Rudbek
@MomSense: I was thinking the same thing as well, although my knitting has been going glacially slowly this year…
Kayla Rudbek
@MomSense: and I have a kit which has a colorway of Flamingo https://www.ravelry.com/people/kaylarudbek/stash/luxury-fingering
Gretchen
Love you, Betty!
Gretchen
@Kayla Rudbek: that was pretty common. I was in a wedding in 1975 where the men wore those light blue tuxes. We wore red dotted Swiss halter dresses and big white picture hats.
Soprano2
@Bupalos: My mom’s estate as a single person was in the high seven figures, and she owed no estate taxes. She left most of it to charity, it was actually mostly my sister’s money.
Kayla Rudbek .
@Gretchen: okay that sounds decidedly worse than my parents’ wedding pictures. The bridesmaids may have had big hats though
Rjv
Fuck cancer.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle:
Heck, without Betty C I wouldn’t even know what *actual* butter lambs were!