Brian Lawson

I live in Lebanon, #Indiana where I am a husband and father of 2. Loyal son of Wabash College (#WAF). CTO at Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE). Hobbies include #comicbooks, #audiobooks, #podcasts, and #weightlifting (although it doesn’t quite outpace my love of #food).

#MastoAdmin for #HoosierSocial

he/him

About Me: https://blawson.net
Work: https://ihie.org
Lemmy - Midwest Social: Brian Lawson (npub1fkh…eqv5)

Public Key

npub1q4hpgumfvftsxxd35k9qqv9khgpxss787j523vyvecypddw3hsyqdfyqgf

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsq2ms5wd5ky4crrxc6tzsqxzmt5qngg0rlf29gkzxvuzqkkhgmczqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hsa980wx

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

relay.damus.io

offchain.pub

Author Public Key

npub1q4hpgumfvftsxxd35k9qqv9khgpxss787j523vyvecypddw3hsyqdfyqgf

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Last Notes

2026-05-10 17:59:21 GMT

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Absolutely beautiful here today.

2026-03-15 17:31:50 GMT

Beware the Ides of March
#rome #italy
https://media.fediforge.com/7e89635c7aa040f7b8e274a5567a3c7a/media_attachments/files/116/234/380/911/130/988/original/dc8ae3a0f09ae817.jpeg

2025-12-27 21:48:51 GMT

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I hadn't noticed this, thanks for the heads-up. Works in a browser, but I was able to recreate the issue from Ivory on iPhone. It seems that it maybe isn't specific to Ice Cubes.
I can submit a ticket and see if there is something I'm not noticing. In the meantime, I found that using the "Open Link to Post" option (is there something similar in Ice Cubes?) is a temporary work-around.

2025-09-03 19:08:47 GMT

Those days when you have to miss part of a meeting just to find time to pee.

2025-08-19 22:19:41 GMT

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I just placed an inter-library loan request based on this recommendation. Thanks!

2025-01-20 23:12:00 GMT

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This is fascinating. I've known about the escape-route thing for years, but the looping around the tower is a new tidbit.
I just placed my pre-order for you book on Amazon!

2025-01-16 21:32:57 GMT

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Not exactly the niche you’re looking for but you might consider disroot.org

2025-01-12 00:02:40 GMT

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Woah, didn’t see that coming. Sorry man. That sucks. I know that we were chatting about storage costs and retention setting on masto.host. I’m assuming it just got to a point where it became unmanageable.
I’m sure we’ll connect when you land somewhere.

2024-12-26 12:05:53 GMT

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I wish I could say that it all ends up making sense. Some questions get answered and explained, but the extraordinary level of weirdness only keeps climbing. Like a train wreck, you can’t help but watch.

2024-12-20 00:06:19 GMT

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I know this isn’t exactly your neighborhood @npub1hrg…7yzk but maybe you know someone?

2024-12-03 16:26:30 GMT

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Thanks fellas. I agree with Kyle and would prefer to keep things separated. I'm just trying to figure out the best no-fee account to open because I imagine that the balance would perpetually be pretty low and I wouldn't hit monthly minimums.

2024-12-03 15:33:42 GMT

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Jason - I keep taking baby steps towards accepting donations and I've created an account on Open Collective. I'm curious, though...do you have your Ko-Fi donations go directly to your personal banking account or did you set up an account for DMV?

2024-11-21 14:12:20 GMT

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Snow in #Indiana

2024-11-08 15:38:41 GMT

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Yes, there are some recurring registration and filing tasks, which come with fees. You could probably do these things directly but I'm paying for convenience. Including less-necessary things like the Registered Agent Service.

2024-11-08 15:34:24 GMT

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Yeah, so, some part of me believes that you're probably right. I still have a "talk to an adult about this shit" on my to-do list.

2024-11-08 15:16:45 GMT

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Recommendation: Honestly, I don't know man. No, I haven't found it to make any material difference yet. It gives me a little peace of mind, but that may be all smoke & mirrors from a legal perspective and I may not actually be getting the protections that motivated me to set it up. I tried to register for some legal services through my company benefits this year to get some advice/clarity around this question but it fell through before it could happen.

2024-11-08 15:14:18 GMT

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Taxes: I've only had the LLC since 2023, so I've only done taxes for it once (earlier this year). Yes, I only listed expenses since I didn't have any credits/income. I use TurboTax and filed the LLC expenses along with my personal on a Schedule C. It wasn't very hard.

2024-11-08 14:49:55 GMT

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I lied...another note. I looked into getting an Umbrella insurance policy to cover any potential legal stuff but it was prohibitively expensive, so 🤷‍♀️
How did I learn about this stuff? Most was from a thread on (then) Twitter from a lawyer during the great Mastodon Migration of 2022 that recommended these steps (and more). I wish I could find that but it is lost to the ages...sorry!

2024-11-08 14:47:12 GMT

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2nd year (2024, so far):
FileNow:
* Annual Report Combo - $79/year
* Annual Report LLC State Fee - $32/year
* Premium Registered Agent Service - $119
Indiana:
* Business Entity Report - $32.00
That seems like it is probably sufficient for a good foundation-setting, so I'll wrap here and am happy to answer questions!
~fin~
7/7

2024-11-08 14:43:43 GMT

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First year (just LLC expenses, not hosting or anything else):
LLC Formation - $506
* Filenow Premium Package - $199.00 (one time fee)
* LLC State Fee - Indiana - $97 (one time fee)
* Registered Agent (1st Year) - $0 ($119/year after)
* Annual Report Combo - $79/year
* Annual Report LLC State Fee - $32/year
* Business License Report - $99 (one time fee)
DMCA Designated Agent Directory Registration - $6
* I didn't talk a lot about this because it was pretty easy.
6/n

2024-11-08 14:40:11 GMT

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I keep track of all of my expenses (and, if there would be any, credits) on a spreadsheet. I used this info to complete a Schedule S on my 2023 Tax Returns. Because it was all expense/loss, I assume that it helped me overall?
This seems like a good time to repeat that I have no clue if I did any of this right!
Next, costs...
5/n

2024-11-08 14:36:46 GMT

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I was confused because none applied. I found a contact email and actually got someone to reply! They said, "If none of these taxes are applicable to your business, you may not need to submit an Indiana tax application for your business."
I asked about donations and they said, "That question would best be answered by a CPA familiar with business taxes"
Because I don't accept donations, I stopped there. I don't have a State Tax ID but do have a Business ID.
4/n

2024-11-08 14:33:25 GMT

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* I had to figure out what to do with the Department of Revenue and State Tax ID (this gets into the donations part!). I used the wizard/form for Indiana and hit a brick wall because I had to check at least one of the boxes that included things like:
1. Will be selling products or tangible items (sales tax)
2. Have employees (withholding tax)
3. Sell food and beverages (sales tax and food-and-beverage tax)
etc...there were several more.
3/n

2024-11-08 14:27:48 GMT

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...completed my Federal EIN (employer identification) and DBA (also called FBN). Sound scary and intimidating? Yeah, I thought so too. But I just sorta squared my shoulders, charged ahead, and did the best I could. A few things that I remember wrestling with:
* You have to pick a business NAICS Code that classifies your business type. Again, I just sorta bumbled through it and picked what I thought was best. I ended up with 516210
https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=516210&year=2022&details=516210
2/n

2024-11-08 14:21:58 GMT

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Ok, let's see where this info dump takes us! Caveats include:
* I'm an idiot and have no idea what I'm doing
* I'm not a lawyer
* I bumbled my way through this and am sure I did many things wrong, but not smart enough to know what those are
LLC creation submitted to FileNow on 1/2/2023 and got my "Congrats, your order is completed!" email on 1/10. So, pretty quick turn-around. In between those dates, I received my Articles of Organization from Indiana and...
1/n

2024-11-08 00:56:16 GMT

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Yeah, I’m happy to share all of that with y’all. However, I’m going to have to wrap back around to it tomorrow.

2024-11-07 23:37:50 GMT

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Well, sorta. I don’t accept donations! :)
I’m really just avoiding it for as long as possible because 1) I don’t want to do the begging thing and 2) I don’t want to f with the accounting.
My LLC is not a NFP, so I expect that I would have to pay taxes whenever that happens.

2024-11-07 20:37:12 GMT

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I used FileNow for the Hoosier Social LLC. It still ended up being confusing and complicated but I attribute a good amount of that to my inexperience and ignorance.

2024-08-09 00:00:48 GMT

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That stinks. Sorry man.