Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I got into a somewhat lengthy conversation with my new coworker in that he was trying to convince me that if we spread the power-ball winnings, $600,000,000 after the lump-sum & taxes, across to every American they'd all get 6 million dollars each.
I was trying to tell him no, that isn't how math works, they'd all get a little under two dollars.
After a few minutes I just ended the conversation, because I don't need this work-place drama in my life.
I got into a somewhat lengthy conversation with my new coworker in that he was trying to convince me that if we spread the power-ball winnings, $600,000,000 after the lump-sum & taxes, across to every American they'd all get 6 million dollars each.
I was trying to tell him no, that isn't how math works, they'd all get a little under two dollars.
After a few minutes I just ended the conversation, because I don't need this work-place drama in my life.
That also isn't how the economy works and would only serve to pretty much ruin the USD as a currency.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
There is no easy way to tell a fellow adult in their late twenties that they are bad at simple math.
My first move after all the lawyer stuff and setting up family trusts, etc, would be to buy a dope condo in London or Sydney and hide out there for a year or so.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Why are you all presuming you'd be hunted?
The killers can't seize your money.
And you have more of it than them!
Just hire bodyguards who will defend you to their last breath.
This is why none of you deserve this money, you lack the resolve to do what is necessary!
I'd be kinda worried about one of my relatives being kidnapped TBH.
Hire a Liam-Neeson-in-Taken kind of person to rescue them. Sure it'll cost you, but it will also send the money to other would-be kidnappers that it's not a profitable move.
There is a tax for winning/losing
Topic 419 - Gambling Income and Losses
The following rules apply to casual gamblers. Gambling winnings are fully taxable and you must report them on your tax return. Gambling income includes but is not limited to winnings from lotteries, raffles, horse races, and casinos. It includes cash winnings and the fair market value of prizes, such as cars and trips. For additional information, refer to Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, or review Do I Need to Claim My Gambling Winnings and Can I Deduct My Gambling Losses?
Gambling Winnings
A payer is required to issue you a Form W-2G (PDF), Certain Gambling Winnings, if you receive certain gambling winnings or if you have any gambling winnings subject to federal income tax withholding. You must report all gambling winnings on your Form 1040 (PDF) as "Other Income" (line 21), including winnings that are not subject to withholding. In addition, you may be required to pay an estimated tax on your gambling winnings. For information on withholding on gambling winnings, refer to Publication 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax. If you are considered a nonresident alien of the United States for income tax purposes and you have to file a tax return, you must use Form 1040NR (PDF), U.S. Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return. Refer to Publication 519, U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens, and Publication 901, U.S. Tax Treaties, for more information.
Gambling Losses
You may deduct gambling losses only if you itemize deductions. However, the amount of losses you deduct may not be more than the amount of gambling income reported on your return. Claim your gambling losses on Form 1040, Schedule A (PDF) as an "Other Miscellaneous Deduction" (line 28) that is not subject to the 2% limit. A nonresident alien of the United States cannot deduct gambling losses.
Recordkeeping
It is important to keep an accurate diary or similar record of your gambling winnings and losses. To deduct your losses, you must be able to provide receipts, tickets, statements, or other records that show the amount of both your winnings and losses. Refer to Publication 529, Miscellaneous Deductions, for more information.
And you pay a tax next year for what you won as it's income
This isn't an extra tax for winning. All this says is that gambling winnings are treated as income and that gambling losses have certain restrictions. The only thing that might be slightly confusing, and may be exacerbated by the amount you would win in the lottery, is that your federal return may use your estimated state income tax instead of the actual amount due. In this case, if you receive a state tax return then that amount is taxable by the federal government in the next year as you didn't pay taxes on it last year. It's not double taxation, it's basically you claiming an incorrect deduction and then having to fix it.
On lottery winnings not being tax free. I believe in other countries, the lottery is run by the central government so it makes sense that lottery winnings are tax free though it does reduce the prize amount. This isn't the case in the US where the lottery is run by the states and not the federal government.
I'd be kinda worried about one of my relatives being kidnapped TBH.
I mean, there are lots of rich people out there whose families aren't being kidnapped.
You're at a much greater risk of being targeted directly by scam artists, shifty friends/family/acquaintances, and random beggars than violent kidnappers.
I'd be kinda worried about one of my relatives being kidnapped TBH.
Hire a Liam-Neeson-in-Taken kind of person to rescue them. Sure it'll cost you, but it will also send the money to other would-be kidnappers that it's not a profitable move.
Protip: find a guy who has a deeply personal reason to hate kidnappers. If it's a standard-issue merc, they might end up making a deal with other people to run some sort of repeat-kidnapping scam.
I'd be kinda worried about one of my relatives being kidnapped TBH.
I mean, there are lots of rich people out there whose families aren't being kidnapped.
You're at a much greater risk of being targeted directly by scam artists, shifty friends/family/acquaintances, and random beggars than violent kidnappers.
This just reminds me of There Will Be Blood.
"Listen, Paul. If I travel all the way out there and I find that you've been lying to me, I'm going to find you and I'm going to take more than my money back. Is that all right with you?"
I'd be kinda worried about one of my relatives being kidnapped TBH.
I mean, there are lots of rich people out there whose families aren't being kidnapped.
You're at a much greater risk of being targeted directly by scam artists, shifty friends/family/acquaintances, and random beggars than violent kidnappers.
But aren't all the people they know at relative equitable wealth? Like, they aren't working minimum wage at the docks, living in Section 8 housing before suddenly making millions.
I'd be kinda worried about one of my relatives being kidnapped TBH.
I mean, there are lots of rich people out there whose families aren't being kidnapped.
You're at a much greater risk of being targeted directly by scam artists, shifty friends/family/acquaintances, and random beggars than violent kidnappers.
Apparently lottery winners are something like 20x more likely to be a victim of homicide than the average population and pretty much every other bad thing is more likely to happen. While it would be cool to win after reading the story of Jack Whittaker, who seems like he should have been the perfect candidate to not get screwed, I'm more inclined to think of the winning the lottery as a curse.
Jack Whittaker, a Johnny Cash attired, West Virginia native, is the poster boy for the dangers of a lump sum award. In 2002 Mr. Whittaker (55 years old at the time) won what was, also at the time, the largest single award jackpot in U.S. history. $315 million. At the time, he planned to live as if nothing had changed, or so he said. He was remarkably modest and decent before the jackpot, and his ship sure came in, right? Wrong.
Mr. Whittaker became the subject of a number of personal challenges, escalating into personal tragedies, complicated by a number of legal troubles.
Whittaker wasn't a typical lottery winner either. His net worth at the time of his winnings was in excess of $15 million, owing to his ownership of a successful contracting firm in West Virginia. His claim to want to live "as if nothing had changed" actually seemed plausible. He should have been well equipped for wealth. He was already quite wealthy, after all. By all accounts he was somewhat modest, low profile, generous and good natured. He should have coasted off into the sunset. Yeah. Not exactly.
Whittaker took the all-cash option, $170 million, instead of the annuity option, and took possession of $114 million in cash after $56 million in taxes. After that, things went south.
Whittaker quickly became the subject of a number of financial stalkers, who would lurk at his regular breakfast hideout and accost him with suggestions for how to spend his money. They were unemployed. No, an interview tomorrow morning wasn't good enough. They needed cash NOW. Perhaps they had a sure-fire business plan. Their daughter had cancer. A niece needed dialysis. Needless to say, Whittaker stopped going to his breakfast haunt. Eventually, they began ringing his doorbell. Sometimes in the early morning. Before long he was paying off-duty deputies to protect his family. He was accused of being heartless. Cold. Stingy.
Letters poured in. Children with cancer. Diabetes. MS. You name it. He hired three people to sort the mail. A detective to filter out the false claims and the con men (and women) was retained.
Brenda, the clerk who had sold Whittaker the ticket, was a victim of collateral damage. Whittaker had written her a check for $44,000 and bought her house, but she was by no means a millionaire. Rumors that the state routinely paid the clerk who had sold the ticket 10% of the jackpot winnings hounded her. She was followed home from work. Threatened. Assaulted.
Whittaker's car was twice broken into, by trusted acquaintances who watched him leave large amounts of cash in it. $500,000 and $200,000 were stolen in two separate instances. The thieves attempted to spike Whittaker's drink with prescription drugs in the first instance. Whittaker was violently allergic to the drug used, and likely would have died given the distance to the nearest emergency room, and the lateness of the hour, but, fortunately he did not consume the drink containing the narcotics. The second incident was the handiwork of his granddaughter's friends, who had been probing the girl for details on Whittaker's cash for weeks.
Even Whittaker's good-faith generosity was questioned. When he offered $10,000 to improve the city's water park so that it was more handicap accessible, locals complained that he spent more money at the strip club. (Amusingly this was true).
Whittaker invested quite a bit in his own businesses, tripled the number of people his businesses employed (making him one of the larger employers in the area) and eventually had given away $14 million to charity through a foundation he set up for the purpose. This is, of course, what you are "supposed" to do. Set up a foundation. Be careful about your charity giving. It made no difference in the end.
To top it all off, Whittaker had been accused of ruining a number of marriages. His money made other men look inferior, they said, wherever he went in the small West Virginia town he called home. Resentment grew quickly. And festered. Whittaker paid four settlements related to this sort of claim. Yes, you read that right. Four.
His family and their immediate circle were quickly the victims of odds-defying numbers of overdoses, emergency room visits and even fatalities. His granddaughter, the eighteen year old "Brandi" (who Whittaker had been giving a $2100.00 per week allowance) was found dead after having been missing for several weeks. Her death was, apparently, from a drug overdose, but Whittaker suspected foul play. Her body had been wrapped in a tarp and hidden behind a rusted-out van. Her seventeen year old boyfriend had expired three months earlier in Whittaker's vacation house, also from an overdose. Some of his friends had robbed the house after his overdose, stepping over his body to make their escape and then returning for more before stepping over his body again to leave. His parents sued for wrongful death claiming that Whittaker's loose purse strings contributed to their son's death. Amazingly, juries are prone to award damages in cases such as these. Whittaker settled. Again.
Even before the deaths, the local and state police had taken a special interest in Whittaker after his new-found fame. He was arrested for minor and less minor offenses many times after his winnings, despite having had a nearly spotless record before the award. Whittaker's high profile couldn't have helped him much in this regard.
In 18 months Whittaker had been cited for over 250 violations ranging from broken tail lights on every one of his five new cars, to improper display of renewal stickers. A lawsuit charging various police organizations with harassment went nowhere and Whittaker was hit with court costs instead.
Whittaker's wife filed for divorce, and in the process froze a number of his assets and the accounts of his operating companies. Caesars in Atlantic City sued him for $1.5 million to cover bounced checks, caused by the asset freeze.
Today Whittaker is badly in debt, and bankruptcy looms large in his future.
I'm curious, whatever state the winner's in is going to get a big stack of cash dumped on them from taxes on it (excepting a handful where lotto winnings aren't taxed). Is there any precedent for a state suing another state for a portion of that?
Like, if the winner bought a ticket in a different state.
I mean, for a normal jackpot it's probably not come up, but here you're looking at something like a half billion tax dollars (depending on the state)...
I'd be kinda worried about one of my relatives being kidnapped TBH.
I mean, there are lots of rich people out there whose families aren't being kidnapped.
You're at a much greater risk of being targeted directly by scam artists, shifty friends/family/acquaintances, and random beggars than violent kidnappers.
Apparently lottery winners are something like 20x more likely to be a victim of homicide than the average population and pretty much every other bad thing is more likely to happen. While it would be cool to win after reading the story of Jack Whittaker, who seems like he should have been the perfect candidate to not get screwed, I'm more inclined to think of the winning the lottery as a curse.
Jack Whittaker, a Johnny Cash attired, West Virginia native, is the poster boy for the dangers of a lump sum award. In 2002 Mr. Whittaker (55 years old at the time) won what was, also at the time, the largest single award jackpot in U.S. history. $315 million. At the time, he planned to live as if nothing had changed, or so he said. He was remarkably modest and decent before the jackpot, and his ship sure came in, right? Wrong.
Mr. Whittaker became the subject of a number of personal challenges, escalating into personal tragedies, complicated by a number of legal troubles.
Whittaker wasn't a typical lottery winner either. His net worth at the time of his winnings was in excess of $15 million, owing to his ownership of a successful contracting firm in West Virginia. His claim to want to live "as if nothing had changed" actually seemed plausible. He should have been well equipped for wealth. He was already quite wealthy, after all. By all accounts he was somewhat modest, low profile, generous and good natured. He should have coasted off into the sunset. Yeah. Not exactly.
Whittaker took the all-cash option, $170 million, instead of the annuity option, and took possession of $114 million in cash after $56 million in taxes. After that, things went south.
Whittaker quickly became the subject of a number of financial stalkers, who would lurk at his regular breakfast hideout and accost him with suggestions for how to spend his money. They were unemployed. No, an interview tomorrow morning wasn't good enough. They needed cash NOW. Perhaps they had a sure-fire business plan. Their daughter had cancer. A niece needed dialysis. Needless to say, Whittaker stopped going to his breakfast haunt. Eventually, they began ringing his doorbell. Sometimes in the early morning. Before long he was paying off-duty deputies to protect his family. He was accused of being heartless. Cold. Stingy.
Letters poured in. Children with cancer. Diabetes. MS. You name it. He hired three people to sort the mail. A detective to filter out the false claims and the con men (and women) was retained.
Brenda, the clerk who had sold Whittaker the ticket, was a victim of collateral damage. Whittaker had written her a check for $44,000 and bought her house, but she was by no means a millionaire. Rumors that the state routinely paid the clerk who had sold the ticket 10% of the jackpot winnings hounded her. She was followed home from work. Threatened. Assaulted.
Whittaker's car was twice broken into, by trusted acquaintances who watched him leave large amounts of cash in it. $500,000 and $200,000 were stolen in two separate instances. The thieves attempted to spike Whittaker's drink with prescription drugs in the first instance. Whittaker was violently allergic to the drug used, and likely would have died given the distance to the nearest emergency room, and the lateness of the hour, but, fortunately he did not consume the drink containing the narcotics. The second incident was the handiwork of his granddaughter's friends, who had been probing the girl for details on Whittaker's cash for weeks.
Even Whittaker's good-faith generosity was questioned. When he offered $10,000 to improve the city's water park so that it was more handicap accessible, locals complained that he spent more money at the strip club. (Amusingly this was true).
Whittaker invested quite a bit in his own businesses, tripled the number of people his businesses employed (making him one of the larger employers in the area) and eventually had given away $14 million to charity through a foundation he set up for the purpose. This is, of course, what you are "supposed" to do. Set up a foundation. Be careful about your charity giving. It made no difference in the end.
To top it all off, Whittaker had been accused of ruining a number of marriages. His money made other men look inferior, they said, wherever he went in the small West Virginia town he called home. Resentment grew quickly. And festered. Whittaker paid four settlements related to this sort of claim. Yes, you read that right. Four.
His family and their immediate circle were quickly the victims of odds-defying numbers of overdoses, emergency room visits and even fatalities. His granddaughter, the eighteen year old "Brandi" (who Whittaker had been giving a $2100.00 per week allowance) was found dead after having been missing for several weeks. Her death was, apparently, from a drug overdose, but Whittaker suspected foul play. Her body had been wrapped in a tarp and hidden behind a rusted-out van. Her seventeen year old boyfriend had expired three months earlier in Whittaker's vacation house, also from an overdose. Some of his friends had robbed the house after his overdose, stepping over his body to make their escape and then returning for more before stepping over his body again to leave. His parents sued for wrongful death claiming that Whittaker's loose purse strings contributed to their son's death. Amazingly, juries are prone to award damages in cases such as these. Whittaker settled. Again.
Even before the deaths, the local and state police had taken a special interest in Whittaker after his new-found fame. He was arrested for minor and less minor offenses many times after his winnings, despite having had a nearly spotless record before the award. Whittaker's high profile couldn't have helped him much in this regard.
In 18 months Whittaker had been cited for over 250 violations ranging from broken tail lights on every one of his five new cars, to improper display of renewal stickers. A lawsuit charging various police organizations with harassment went nowhere and Whittaker was hit with court costs instead.
Whittaker's wife filed for divorce, and in the process froze a number of his assets and the accounts of his operating companies. Caesars in Atlantic City sued him for $1.5 million to cover bounced checks, caused by the asset freeze.
Today Whittaker is badly in debt, and bankruptcy looms large in his future.
Well It's not really the lottery win itself that causes the bad luck, the money just increases the chances. If you let them announce your name, if you drive a fancy car, if you give tons of money to an 18 year old that may not have developed much in the way of responsible use of money, your more likely to be targetted by thieves, have your car targetting to be stolen, or possibly that 18 year old to be in situations that a normally broke 18 year old would not be in. I'm not saying thats the case in this circumstance...just saying its a contribution that could be mitigated by being smarter about it.
1) Do not reveal your name to the public. Hell if i won i would be pretty damn selective about what family members i told.
2) Immediately create a 10-20 million dollar trust fund that earns very little interest but is rock solid safe...every year the money it earns will be deposited into an account with your name on it...you, nor any reciever cannot ever touch the principle amount. trust passes to your heirs. this way you always have a backup even if you do something really stupid and lose it all.
Then...assuming you can manage not to immediately overdose on cocaine (again, see 'do somethign stupid'), you can do whatever you want, as long as you dont flash it. Sure you can have a fancy car, but park it in LA or somewhere that there are tons of fancy cars. Don't drive a Ferrari in bumfuck, Alabama.
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
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scherbchenAsgard (it is dead)Registered Userregular
Bumfuck, Alabama gets a really bad rep. nice people.
I'm curious, whatever state the winner's in is going to get a big stack of cash dumped on them from taxes on it (excepting a handful where lotto winnings aren't taxed). Is there any precedent for a state suing another state for a portion of that?
Like, if the winner bought a ticket in a different state.
I mean, for a normal jackpot it's probably not come up, but here you're looking at something like a half billion tax dollars (depending on the state)...
It's complicated, but generally speaking if you buy a ticket in one state and reside in another you'll be on the hook for taxes in both states. It depends a lot on if the state you purchased from takes their cut immediately or if you would have to file a non-residential return at the end of the year. If it's the former you're probably out of luck and all of the remaining jackpot will have to be reported on your normal state tax return as income. If it's the latter then some states have reciprocal agreements where you can get a credit on your state return for taxes payed on income earned in another state.
Well, one thing to remember...never..never..never pick a set of the same numbers to play every week. Cause the one week you didnt buy a ticket, they will come up and you will KNOW they came up because they are your numbers. always go random...
Posts
I was trying to tell him no, that isn't how math works, they'd all get a little under two dollars.
After a few minutes I just ended the conversation, because I don't need this work-place drama in my life.
That also isn't how the economy works and would only serve to pretty much ruin the USD as a currency.
It would have only been awkward.
The killers can't seize your money.
And you have more of it than them!
Just hire bodyguards who will defend you to their last breath.
This is why none of you deserve this money, you lack the resolve to do what is necessary!
If I were to worry about such things, it would be in the space between buying the ticket and getting the money.
Fair enough... But if you an secure that money, you are good.
In that situation I'd pull a Mel Gibson.
Hire a Liam-Neeson-in-Taken kind of person to rescue them. Sure it'll cost you, but it will also send the money to other would-be kidnappers that it's not a profitable move.
This isn't an extra tax for winning. All this says is that gambling winnings are treated as income and that gambling losses have certain restrictions. The only thing that might be slightly confusing, and may be exacerbated by the amount you would win in the lottery, is that your federal return may use your estimated state income tax instead of the actual amount due. In this case, if you receive a state tax return then that amount is taxable by the federal government in the next year as you didn't pay taxes on it last year. It's not double taxation, it's basically you claiming an incorrect deduction and then having to fix it.
On lottery winnings not being tax free. I believe in other countries, the lottery is run by the central government so it makes sense that lottery winnings are tax free though it does reduce the prize amount. This isn't the case in the US where the lottery is run by the states and not the federal government.
I mean, there are lots of rich people out there whose families aren't being kidnapped.
You're at a much greater risk of being targeted directly by scam artists, shifty friends/family/acquaintances, and random beggars than violent kidnappers.
Protip: find a guy who has a deeply personal reason to hate kidnappers. If it's a standard-issue merc, they might end up making a deal with other people to run some sort of repeat-kidnapping scam.
This just reminds me of There Will Be Blood.
"Listen, Paul. If I travel all the way out there and I find that you've been lying to me, I'm going to find you and I'm going to take more than my money back. Is that all right with you?"
But aren't all the people they know at relative equitable wealth? Like, they aren't working minimum wage at the docks, living in Section 8 housing before suddenly making millions.
Apparently lottery winners are something like 20x more likely to be a victim of homicide than the average population and pretty much every other bad thing is more likely to happen. While it would be cool to win after reading the story of Jack Whittaker, who seems like he should have been the perfect candidate to not get screwed, I'm more inclined to think of the winning the lottery as a curse.
Story:
Jack Whittaker, a Johnny Cash attired, West Virginia native, is the poster boy for the dangers of a lump sum award. In 2002 Mr. Whittaker (55 years old at the time) won what was, also at the time, the largest single award jackpot in U.S. history. $315 million. At the time, he planned to live as if nothing had changed, or so he said. He was remarkably modest and decent before the jackpot, and his ship sure came in, right? Wrong.
Mr. Whittaker became the subject of a number of personal challenges, escalating into personal tragedies, complicated by a number of legal troubles.
Whittaker wasn't a typical lottery winner either. His net worth at the time of his winnings was in excess of $15 million, owing to his ownership of a successful contracting firm in West Virginia. His claim to want to live "as if nothing had changed" actually seemed plausible. He should have been well equipped for wealth. He was already quite wealthy, after all. By all accounts he was somewhat modest, low profile, generous and good natured. He should have coasted off into the sunset. Yeah. Not exactly.
Whittaker took the all-cash option, $170 million, instead of the annuity option, and took possession of $114 million in cash after $56 million in taxes. After that, things went south.
Whittaker quickly became the subject of a number of financial stalkers, who would lurk at his regular breakfast hideout and accost him with suggestions for how to spend his money. They were unemployed. No, an interview tomorrow morning wasn't good enough. They needed cash NOW. Perhaps they had a sure-fire business plan. Their daughter had cancer. A niece needed dialysis. Needless to say, Whittaker stopped going to his breakfast haunt. Eventually, they began ringing his doorbell. Sometimes in the early morning. Before long he was paying off-duty deputies to protect his family. He was accused of being heartless. Cold. Stingy.
Letters poured in. Children with cancer. Diabetes. MS. You name it. He hired three people to sort the mail. A detective to filter out the false claims and the con men (and women) was retained.
Brenda, the clerk who had sold Whittaker the ticket, was a victim of collateral damage. Whittaker had written her a check for $44,000 and bought her house, but she was by no means a millionaire. Rumors that the state routinely paid the clerk who had sold the ticket 10% of the jackpot winnings hounded her. She was followed home from work. Threatened. Assaulted.
Whittaker's car was twice broken into, by trusted acquaintances who watched him leave large amounts of cash in it. $500,000 and $200,000 were stolen in two separate instances. The thieves attempted to spike Whittaker's drink with prescription drugs in the first instance. Whittaker was violently allergic to the drug used, and likely would have died given the distance to the nearest emergency room, and the lateness of the hour, but, fortunately he did not consume the drink containing the narcotics. The second incident was the handiwork of his granddaughter's friends, who had been probing the girl for details on Whittaker's cash for weeks.
Even Whittaker's good-faith generosity was questioned. When he offered $10,000 to improve the city's water park so that it was more handicap accessible, locals complained that he spent more money at the strip club. (Amusingly this was true).
Whittaker invested quite a bit in his own businesses, tripled the number of people his businesses employed (making him one of the larger employers in the area) and eventually had given away $14 million to charity through a foundation he set up for the purpose. This is, of course, what you are "supposed" to do. Set up a foundation. Be careful about your charity giving. It made no difference in the end.
To top it all off, Whittaker had been accused of ruining a number of marriages. His money made other men look inferior, they said, wherever he went in the small West Virginia town he called home. Resentment grew quickly. And festered. Whittaker paid four settlements related to this sort of claim. Yes, you read that right. Four.
His family and their immediate circle were quickly the victims of odds-defying numbers of overdoses, emergency room visits and even fatalities. His granddaughter, the eighteen year old "Brandi" (who Whittaker had been giving a $2100.00 per week allowance) was found dead after having been missing for several weeks. Her death was, apparently, from a drug overdose, but Whittaker suspected foul play. Her body had been wrapped in a tarp and hidden behind a rusted-out van. Her seventeen year old boyfriend had expired three months earlier in Whittaker's vacation house, also from an overdose. Some of his friends had robbed the house after his overdose, stepping over his body to make their escape and then returning for more before stepping over his body again to leave. His parents sued for wrongful death claiming that Whittaker's loose purse strings contributed to their son's death. Amazingly, juries are prone to award damages in cases such as these. Whittaker settled. Again.
Even before the deaths, the local and state police had taken a special interest in Whittaker after his new-found fame. He was arrested for minor and less minor offenses many times after his winnings, despite having had a nearly spotless record before the award. Whittaker's high profile couldn't have helped him much in this regard.
In 18 months Whittaker had been cited for over 250 violations ranging from broken tail lights on every one of his five new cars, to improper display of renewal stickers. A lawsuit charging various police organizations with harassment went nowhere and Whittaker was hit with court costs instead.
Whittaker's wife filed for divorce, and in the process froze a number of his assets and the accounts of his operating companies. Caesars in Atlantic City sued him for $1.5 million to cover bounced checks, caused by the asset freeze.
Today Whittaker is badly in debt, and bankruptcy looms large in his future.
Like, if the winner bought a ticket in a different state.
I mean, for a normal jackpot it's probably not come up, but here you're looking at something like a half billion tax dollars (depending on the state)...
Well It's not really the lottery win itself that causes the bad luck, the money just increases the chances. If you let them announce your name, if you drive a fancy car, if you give tons of money to an 18 year old that may not have developed much in the way of responsible use of money, your more likely to be targetted by thieves, have your car targetting to be stolen, or possibly that 18 year old to be in situations that a normally broke 18 year old would not be in. I'm not saying thats the case in this circumstance...just saying its a contribution that could be mitigated by being smarter about it.
1) Do not reveal your name to the public. Hell if i won i would be pretty damn selective about what family members i told.
2) Immediately create a 10-20 million dollar trust fund that earns very little interest but is rock solid safe...every year the money it earns will be deposited into an account with your name on it...you, nor any reciever cannot ever touch the principle amount. trust passes to your heirs. this way you always have a backup even if you do something really stupid and lose it all.
Then...assuming you can manage not to immediately overdose on cocaine (again, see 'do somethign stupid'), you can do whatever you want, as long as you dont flash it. Sure you can have a fancy car, but park it in LA or somewhere that there are tons of fancy cars. Don't drive a Ferrari in bumfuck, Alabama.
It's complicated, but generally speaking if you buy a ticket in one state and reside in another you'll be on the hook for taxes in both states. It depends a lot on if the state you purchased from takes their cut immediately or if you would have to file a non-residential return at the end of the year. If it's the former you're probably out of luck and all of the remaining jackpot will have to be reported on your normal state tax return as income. If it's the latter then some states have reciprocal agreements where you can get a credit on your state return for taxes payed on income earned in another state.
Basically you should just hire a tax attorney.
Nobody win this time alright??
Speaking of things that get an unfairly bad rep.
Same, so I'm going to post the numbers I would have used just in case they win and I can feel terrible.
13 69 27 31 48 17
Good luck to all the fiends in this thread.
I think you can buy a ticket up until an hour before the drawing so you still have time!
Also wonder how much the jack pot will go to of no one wins again.
If I don't play there's always the chance I could have won.
Between ~650 million and hope, I choose hope.
That's not hope, that's regret.
Which might be substantial if you have a habit of blowing things out of proportion.
No, because there's always another lottery.