Richard Hatch isn't entertaining, so...
 

this thread must belong in current events. It would be better if we had a stupid human zone but this will have to do.

How stupid do you have to attempt tax evasion when something like half the country saw you win $1million and you were on every radio and tv show for the next year?

Richard Hatch

Since a significant number of lottery winners end up in bankruptcy, this doesn't suprise me a bit.

the lottery thing is more easily understood though. (i have had several as clients over the years.) most of them came from very modest means and won $XXmillion dollars - an unspendable sum of money in their minds. they often don't take into account how the math can really work for or against them. the ones i've seen run into financial trouble follow a pretty simple formula A) tell everyone they know B) buy big new house for them and family members, paying cash of course C) buy the flashy cars and toys they always wanted D) help out family members and friends who have always been there for them. E) invest in their own poorly thought out business ventures or similar ideas a "friend" had. F) somewhere along the line they realize they have a lot less than they started with and start trading or investing in risky ventures to get their money supply back up, thus losing even more. G) take a look at the credit lines they have stretched out and realize they are equal to or greater than what they have left. then they start contemplating the big BK.

my personal favorite is someone i knew who inthe 3 months space that i didn't see them, won a couple million, quit their job, paid off their house and bought another for their mom, and another "vacation home" up north, a mercedes and a hummer ('cuz the wife's gott drive too) and then came to me, because they misunderstood the payout structure and needed a little cash to cover the expenses.


All of which lends itself to:

What would you do if you won the lottery? Let's be more specific, Let's say $5,000,000 (after taxes) falls into your lap.
What would you change about your life?
What would you buy?
Would you give any of the money away?

You're just jealous.

Hatch is advised to warm up by sitting on large-diameter flagpoles.http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/eek.gif

welcome back, but what exactly am i jealous of?

My first post. Greetings from the UK. You have to pay taxes on Lottery wins in the States? Ouch!

Yes, but we don't have to pay a tax to watch broadcast television.

We just hemorrhage cash so we can have digital cable and not find anything to watch on 500+ channels.

In the multi-state powerball Louisiana is a part of, you end up with a little more than 25% of the winnings if you don't take the annuity.

5 Million isn't very much in L.A. I suppose I'd give some to the tsunami victims, pay off my dad's mortgage, buy my mom a cheap house, build a house in Vietnam near the river where my mother-in-law could stay for free and take care of it for us, fly to Vietnam to stay with my wife until her paperwork goes through, and buy us a decent 4-plex, 2 cars, my hot dog cart and a truck to pull it.

ah, the take care of the family syndrome. for me, i think i would not change that much.

I like my job, so i wouldn't quit. i would probably build my next house a little bit nicer than my current one, but i wouldn't pay it off, just the mortgage route for me thank you. i would cough out the $250,000 a charitable group i know needs to get running. pay off mom and dad's house and my sister's student loans. invest the rest and have fun with 50% of the earnings every year. of course, i would stipulate in my trust that my kid, love him as i do, can't lay a finger on any of the money until after his 30th birthday (other than college expenses, and those limited to 4 years.)

Quite true. But very few watch the state sponsored crap on BBC anymore. We just hemorrhage cash so we can have digital satellite and not find anything to watch on 500+ channels.
:biggrin:

We did a thread on why if you won the lottery.
Welcome to the Cellar saganista, it's better than TV. :biggrin:

Suckers, here in Canada we don't get taxed on TV or lottery winnings.

Except our lotteries, when they hit 12 million, are about as big as they're gonna get.

And our television tends to suck the knobbly balls of Satan.

But we steal your satellite signals for free!

*sings anthem*

We have to pay taxes on a lot of stuff in the US... I'm learning in my tax class that many of us should be paying tax on a lot of stuff that just doesn't seem like taxable income.

If you obtain illegal income, you're supposed to pay taxes on it. Talk about self-incrimination!

Did Al Capone know this?
:)

I don't think we pay tax on lottery wins here.

What would you do if you won the lottery? Let's be more specific, Let's say $5,000,000 (after taxes) falls into your lap.
What would you change about your life? Employment status! quit job and spend time learning karate, working out, volunteer at animal shelter...

What would you buy? house, drums and PA system, gym equipment, car, 2 vacations- Russia and Virgin Islands and all kinds of teachers- russian tutor, karate lessons, personal trainer, music lessons...

Would you give any of the money away? I'm not really a generous person, so the only people I 'd feel a strong urge to take care of are my grandparents. I'd like my grandmother to have a diamond tennis bracelet and her house remodeled ...I'd probably spend about $300,000 on them, but for everyone else, I'd lie and say that the taxes took most of my money away and we broke even after we bought the house!

I'd want to invest about 3 million so we could hopefully live off the interest, although if I really did have that 5 milion, I'd look into this way more than now, as it's hypothetical.. before spending anything, I'd want to know all of the math...If we invest this amount, how much yearly interest will we have?, that amount?... etc.

__________________

What are the anonymity rules regarding the lottery? It seems to me that as soon as you step forward to claim it, it becomes public record who you are and where you live and how much money you got. Is there any way to claim it without having your picture taken with that stupid big check and having the local news write a story about you??

Go to an attorney and form a trust. Then have the attorney claim the winnings in the name of the trust. The winnings are then payable to the trust which, via the law firm, distributes the money in accordance with the rules of the trust. The trust documents are not a matter of public record and you will be perfectly anonymous. I know quite a few lottery winners who have done this.

The problem with staying anonymous are family members and friends who blab.

I assume that this is, in part, due to the infamous "specific Canadian content" regulation being applied to original programming there?

The problem with staying anonymous are family members and friends who blab.

Hell, I wouldn't tell them. They'll just get to wonder why their Christmas presents have gotten a lot nicer.

Of course it's going to be very hard for me to win the lottery without ever buying a ticket, but at least now I have a plan. It's good to be prepared for anything. :)

If I won the lottery, after paying off everything except mortgage debt, I'd probably go out and buy a Harley. I like this one:

http://a1276.g.akamai.net/7/1276/734...dom_c14_s1.jpg

He probably did... but who wants to incriminate themselves :)?

the IRS doesn't share the info with law enforcement. ** they are only concerned with their money. on the other hand, how many real criminals have been taken down because of tax evasion?

When i worked in the car business i had a guy who pulled $9500 out of his pocket for his down payment and when i filled out his credit app, he claimed to be an "independent distributor", with a great big smile. he said he filed his taxes and was meticulous with his record keeping and had never had any problems.

Ten minutes after we closed the car sale, he pulled out another $9500, and said his girlfriend wanted one too. Same thing for her.

And that $9500 was purposefully $500 less than $10000, wasn't it? He expected you to report a cash transaction of $10000 or more to the IRS...

bingo!

anyone listen to howard stern? Crazy Cabby is a frequent guest who won $100,000 in a payper view boxing match. he bragged on the air that he doesnt pay his taxes. an IRS agent was listening. he got busted. now that's stupid.

a guy i worked with in the air force in the early 90's became an IRS auditor. if 1/3 of what he says is true, they have mad scary powers and abilities. i hear they can shoot death rays out of their arses, too.

5 million? I quit my full-time job and become a consultant. Much easier when you don't have to worry about dry spells, and can work a lot less than otherwise necessary to maintain my current lifestyle.

A question for those in the US and Canada. Is there a maximum amount that can be won on your lotteries? Or is the jackpot 'rolled over' till the next week if not won? The largest in the UK I think was around £20 million, (around $30 million US). We've still got some way to go before we reach Spains level - 33 million Euro weekly jackpots are quite regular.

"The largest Powerball jackpot was captured last year by a West Virginia contractor who won $314.9 million on Christmas Day. The richest lottery prize in U.S. history was $363 million in the Big Game jackpot, split by two players in 2000."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in562719.shtml

Wow! Lovely! Hope they all deserved it.

I know they have an anonymity box for lottery winners over here. A fella from Yorkshire won about 22mil after it rolled over a few months and nobody knows who he is. Very low profile geezer.

My first purchase would be a Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster that they have in Modena Cars just round the corner to where I work. The next would be 500 gallons of petrol and a stack of new tyres.

And the rest on speeding tickets?
:)

Oh, and a five mile patch of Bonneville salt flats...
I did the "geting caught at 106mph" a few years back!

I heard that had been lowered to $5k not long ago. Part of the terrorist tracking thing. :dead:

Take note of any mid-east looking geezers trying to buy Howitzers for $4999.95. Them buggers is up to no good!

Hmm... Lets see... You've already been done for 106mph, and you want to buy a monster Lambo. Wouldn't it be a good idea if you started with, say, a Robin Reliant and work your way up? At least until you grasp the concept of speed restrictions? :)

Ah, but that's why I want a patch 'o' the Flats too. It wasn't that bad, I only got two weeks off the road, £250 fine. And I got sent to work in Ireland for the first week of the ban. Bonzer!

But don't you think running up and down a patch of salt flats is a waste of this cars posing potential? Could you really resist thinking every time you went past a 70 MPH sign - "my car can do nearly three times that"?

"Speed restrictions" is an oxymoron. ;)

Bonzer?

A less dangerous type of moron that I see every day on the road!

Don't mention the "T" word! I am currently embroiled in a major battle with the IRS for taxes they say I owe back from '93 and '94. They sent notices about this to an address I haven't lived at for 8 years and only last year pounced on my tax return for back taxes, finally making me aware of the problem. You don't even wanna know what a nightmare it is trying to recreate 11 and 12 year old financial records when everyone, self included, disacards stuff after 7 years! @#$$%@!@!#!$!$#@#

Anyhow, if I won 5 mill, I'd let the IRS have their undeserved blood money on top of what they'd normally take without a fight. Then:

1) I'd build me as energy self-sufficient house as possible on a 100 acres or so of land in Montana with a river running thru it and solid water rights.
2) Buy a couple of guns I've been wanting.
3) Make the appropriate gifts to faithful friends
4) Peel off the appropriate amount to a worthy charity
5) Invest the remainder
6) Never be heard from again

An Australian slang word meaning 'good', 'excellent'.

Isn't there a statute of limitations?

Hah! Hah! You dreamer! Not as far as the IRS is concerned, and in their eyes you are guilty until proven innocent. :mad2:

Been in that boat myself just recently, same situation just a different tax collector. It concerned vehicle taxes a town I haven't lived in for 10 years suddenly decided I owed them when I went to renew my car registration. The amount wasn't really that much but I fought it on principal.

Long story short, it turns out that you really can't fight city hall. After driving around with an expired registration for 2 months, going back and forth with the powers that be, I ended up paying the freakin' tax a couple days before the end of the year so I could at least claim it as taxes paid on this years income tax returns. :(

What gets me is that this is obviously

1) Some wierd clerical error when inputting data into some monster government database somewhere.

or

2) A major corporation up to some scam of it's own, and I and God knows how many others are merely innocent bystanders.

I am listed as working for a company I never even heard of before, and when I tracked down the phone number of their corporate offices and requested a letter from them stating I had not been their employee for the years in question, they refused, saying making a statement EITHER way about my hypothetical employment would be "playing games with the IRS."

What!?! :eyebrow:

Yes.