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Considering I've never purchased a ticket and never will... I know my chances.
If I were to win, I would not be in the business of making anyone a millionare.
I'd invest 20,000,000 use the interest to cover living expenses. No one would approach me asking for money. I will decide who gets what. I'd buy out City Data, well the company that owns CD... And clean house. That would be a pet (peeve) project.
I'd put together something nice and simple as far as living, what I drive etc. I have a few remaining debts that I'd knock out. I'd keep a low key lifestyle.
Few points to consider:
1. For you non-players: Ticket is a dollar, less than a pack of cigarettes, a Starbucks/Dunkin Donuts Coffee or any name brand can of beer. This isn't betting next months mortgage/rent payment!
2. For those that want to keep your same house/job etc. Keep in mind all of those people that bought tickets to their dream with think they have some type of bond with you since you won their dream. They will camp out at your home/job in order to ask you for money. You will even get people asking for money that didn't bother buying a ticket!
3. People that know you (friends/family) will come out of the woodwork asking for money for heart transplants/new businesses/sick kids/saving homes from foreclosure etc.
Your identity being anonymous is your best asset. A picture with the fake check is insanity (now everyone in the world knows your name, knows what you look like and what you are worth to the penny!).
You will also need a good cover story. Someone will always ask what you do for a living.....car salesman, realtor, neighbor at the new mansion etc. You need a quick answer that bores them to death so they don't ask a follow up question. If you want to be coy, "I moderately invest in high risk short term investments with exponential growth" (lottery ticket).
Or I sold the family farm to Walmart for a new distribution center or you owned a few hundred acres in North Dakota before they found all that natural gas. Heck even tell them you were an early investor in Apple (stock is $600 a share!). Boring = no more questions. I won the lottery = gossip, more questions and the inevitable "Can I borrow money question?"
I know a guy that won twice (23 million total). He made a few mistakes after winning.
BTW I think an excellent way to weed out people that ask for money: Ask to see their ticket! No ticket means you didn't think you could win so why would you think I would give you any money?
240MM in cash at the current 540 number. Give 40 people 1MM or 80 people 500K and let them live their lives. Keep in mind it would be great PR to announce the jackpot was shared by 81 people (yeah you at 200MM and 80 more at 500K each but the news would automatically think 240/81 = 3mm each........boring no follow up story needed). These selected winners could be friends/family etc but put them in on the trust that collects the check (anonymous winners) and then you don't pay the gift tax on the money given to them. If you collect first then you are limited by the IRS to $13,000 if you are single/$26000 if married to what you can give away without penalty to each person. Married couple could give the mailman $26,000 every year tax free as a gift. If mailman was married then they could give him 26K and wife 26K for a total annual gift of $52,000. You can see how difficult it would be to give you brother 10MM in one lump sum! Gift tax is 50%, give your brother 10MM, YOU owe the IRS 5MM next year (yeah that seems fair!) so it costs you 15MM to give away 10! So all these athletes/entertainers buying everyone Bentleys and Mansions easily get caught up in the IRS small details!
Quick answer for anyone asking for more: How much have you given away in your life? 1mm/500K is still strong money for most, not too many folks can say they have given that amount away before.
I would get an attorney, create a blind trust, and claim the ticket through that....
Probably the best "cover story" would just be to move someplace where there are a lot of wealthy people.
I'd just be a regular person there, and if asked I'd say I owned a tech company that was bought out.
Hardest part would be knowing what to tell family.
As far as helping people out, I'd probably rather do stuff like pay for medical expenses or education. It's better than just giving someone money, and also you don't pay gift tax when you pay for someone else's medical care or college.
Everyone at the office is talking about the jackpot, I'm going out after work and buying fifty more tickets. I usually don't play the lottery but the jackpot is just so big that throwing $50 at it for a chance of that amount of money isn't too bad.
Quote:
I would get an attorney, create a blind trust, and claim the ticket through that....
Probably the best "cover story" would just be to move someplace where there are a lot of wealthy people.
I'd just be a regular person there, and if asked I'd say I owned a tech company that was bought out.
Hardest part would be knowing what to tell family.
As far as helping people out, I'd probably rather do stuff like pay for medical expenses or education. It's better than just giving someone money, and also you don't pay gift tax when you pay for someone else's medical care or college.
I agree. Maybe I'd go to Vegas for a week and live like a king for $10 million or something. THAT would be fun.
$640 million. That's just a crazy amount money at this point. I would definitely be taking the 180 days allowed to set up my trusts, life insurance, lawyers and financial planners before claiming a penny. Sure, after taxes, you're looking at "only" $300 million or so. That's still enough to take care of all the dreams I could muster. Even if you split the pot with 2 other winners, you're looking at after-tax take home of $100 million.
I would definitely take care of my parents retirement, my in-laws, and my immediate family's needs. (note needs, not wants). I also have a number of charities that I would like to make investments in- ie, help them not just with immediate needs but give them the resources to reach an efficient scale of services.
Of course, I love some of the online responses to what people would do with the money. My favorite so far is "Hire Morgan Freeman to read bedtime stories every night for the rest of his/my life."
Too bad it would take over 20 years to buy every number combo (5 seconds to fill out 176 million tickets). A $176 million investment would pay off rather well with the $640+ mil prize!
I would probably take the annual payments. That's $38,500 for every $1 million a year, before taxes. So that's $24,640,000 a year. Take out 30% for taxes, that leaves you $17,248,000 a year. So $17,248,000 x 26 years is $448,448,000.
I suppose I should create a separate thread, but someone mentioned the gift tax up above - do the people who receive the gift money have to pay income taxes on it?
And the IRS website was confusing when I tried to look up specifics - an example gave that after the $13K, the taxable portion was $24K, and the taxable portion was something like $4k, but you subtract that from $1.7m and then you don't pay taxes? So can you gift money away tax-free until you hit the accrued tax of $1.7m?
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. Maybe I'd go to Vegas for a week and live like a king for $10 million or something. THAT would be fun
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