If you won the lottery, would you bitch about the taxes?

reply to post by Aggie Man

(if I actually played that suckers game).

The best I have ever done is, I won $150 on Mega Millions.

I do not play regularly.....

I will get me a ticket for friday though. I am busting my butt at work.

Cool, the search function does actually work , now hopefully I won't get in trouble for posting in a pretty much dead thread.

I actually wanted to gripe about the taxes on lotteries.

In my state we have the state lotto where the minimum is 1 million. Ignore the stats and that its a losers game for this scenario.

If you win you have 2 options the annuity (25 payments of $40,000.00) or the lump sum.

With the lump sum you get half of that, so in this case $500,000.00. Surprisingly in my liberal state of Washington, there isn't any state taxes on the winnings (although there is a sales tax so hopefully that's the logic their).

With each of these options, you are taxed at 25% on the federal level.

Now, the fact that the lump sum after taxes equates to my pretaxed income I currently get (assuming full 40 hours and no over time, its actually within dollars) I would love to win it.

However its a principle, they say you win the 1 million, but there isn't even an asterisk stating its "before taxes" or any kind of legalize as far as I can find.

I do play I have 4 that I play with any regularity. The state lotto, hit5, mega millions and powerball.

I do so for various reasons, and the main one is hope. The way I see life is not to work until you die, which is what I am doing now, but to live. If I won just the minimum jackpot on any of those (with the exception of hit5, I would have to be the only winner on the minimum and several drawings later) I would be able to pay off my house.

I of course would like to get a larger chunk as I want to become as independent as possible.

Try to find land with water rights to a river that is year round for some micro hydro. Do some algae for some bio diesel and of course grow my own food. It costs some considerable amount to start up, but I could definitely do it.

Especially if I can control the temperature and lighting in a greenhouse we have full spectrum lighting (although it really gives off something like 94% of the light spectrum).

Don't worry, I have my fantasy all planned out Now if I could win and not worry about a SHTF situation, Id be all good

reply to post by calnorak


While i agree with what you are saying,,,

I would still take my $500,000 and it would be less than that for me...............

It sucks but, what can I really do about it?

I'll play their game, as long as were even at the end and I have a few bucks to invest in something left over...

I forgot to add that I just scratched off a $25 and a 2 $ winner out of five one dollar tickets...........

reply to post by liejunkie01


If my husband and I were to win the lottery,I would have no problems
paying the taxes.After paying the taxes my husband and I would hide
out somewhere before our kids' found out.

reply to post by mamabeth


LOL!!!

I'm not worried about my son, he isn't material like that. Yes he wants things, but not to the point I'd fear him trying to off me.

As for some of my other family, maybe.

I don't really have an issue with paying taxes with it. Its mainly the fact that they don't tell you till you are filling out the paperwork that I have issues with.

Almost everyone I talked to over the last 5 or so years since I found this out (boy I wish it was filling out said paperwork ) is that they get a huge check for prize, then pay taxes when its next April.

Its like that joke where the guy raffles off the dead donkey and just gives the winner his money back.

Oh, and about those taxes, its like your paycheck. It gets taken before its you get the money.