Are US lotteries and tax laws retarded?
 

or what? This paragraph is from the article regarding the $162 Million dollar winner....

So, correct me if I'm wrong.... if you win and you take the payment option you get the entire $162 million minus a hefty chunk for taxes.

If you take the lump sum payment, the lottery claws back like nearly $70 million, leaving you with $94 million... but then the government steps in an grabs nearly thirty million? This is the retarded part.... why does the goverment deserve to claim 1/3 of your winnings? I mean really, did the government pay for part of your ticket when you bought it? Did they help you pick out a couple of the winning numbers?


Here in Canada, if you win a lottery, you WIN the entire jackpot, period. You get taxed only on the interest earned on your money. No matter if you won $2 million or $164 million dollars here, you would GET the entire amount, no bullshit payment options, no bullshit of any kind.

It does suck,but also Canada doesn't get those huge jackpots like the Americans.There was discussion about taxing lottery winnings at one time.

in canada u have 2 options after u win same as in usa take % of the monye now or get everything through a long period of time

Correct. The largest jackpot that I can recall was $34 million in the super 7. There have been lots of 20-25 million jackpots, and very many 10-20 million ones, in the 6/49 and in other lotteries. Not mega-jackpots, but still.... you can do a lot of dammage with $34 mil.... ALL of it, not just 60% of it.

That lottery jackpot is 162 million because they say:

If we invested whatever today, with the known interest rates.. what would it yeild in whatever years (lets say 40, i dunno exactly)...

So the lottery company invests lets say 40 million and in 40 years.. it's worth 162 million.. Jackpot is 162 million.. but if you want the money today.. it's 40 million minus taxes..

Never seen that, but I am not a dedicated lottery player...

Which one is that?

Why pay such rediculiously high amounts?
Surely it would be better to create 90 millionaires rather than one Multi-millionaire..:2 cents:

they should never tax winnings,

i mean they tax you to freagin breath now. at least let the people off and give them the entire sum of the money.

your government at work here to make your like miserable. :thumbsup

LOL, you must not understand the point of a lottery

I've never heard of this either, and I've known of a few fairly big winners over the years. They got it all, period.

Even Western Canada Lotteries Corp. makes no mention of payment options on their site... http://www.wclc.com/index.html

They rather you take the payments this way you're only getting the intrest..i would take the lump sum...and be gone just like them:1orglaugh Fuck the World I'm Rich Biatch

Probably not - I have never joined that queue - Nor am I likely to.

Btw, that 34 million dollar jackpot in Canada was in 2002 and was won by 4 separate tickets. Four people got an equal share of what actually amounted to approximately 37 million at time of payout, or close to 9 million each. Each received the entire amount they were entitled to, no tax, no bullshit.

That's my kind of lottery.

the US gov in general and the IRS in specific are really no better than Guido the Killer Pimp...



it is a large gang that forces people living on it's turf to pay 'protection money' and if you don't they will throw in jail for some forced love, while if you are a MEMBER of the government none of those laws really apply...


and in order to get that turf they thought it was ok to 'ethnically cleanse' a large group of people who already lived here...



...then they said, ok cuz we were dicks you can have this lil shitty piece of land here and DO WHAT YOU WANT....oh, that's until you start making BUTTLOADS of money in your casinos and we want that tax money ;)

I won $50k on a scratch ticket.
After about an hour and a half drive to the lottery office, they handed me a check for $33k and change..

fuckers.

The Feds aren't stupid. You win 100 Million this week, cash it out and then they wait around for you to pay taxes on it the next April? Fuck no! 'Cause if they didn't take their cut up front, people would cash out with the state and then head for Antigua and never pay a dime to the IRS. As for the rest, if they were supposed to budget 30% for taxes, you know it will be gone come tax time.

Canadians don't generally play the lotto like americans do....we are generally more realistic I think w/ that we don't think that we'd ever win so why play??? cept for when u see a large jackpot..if we did then the jackpot would prolly be much higher...

there's a tax for EVERYTHING in america, and that 30 something mill was only federal tax right? wait till state hits him end of next tax year :Graucho

True. I won a 5000.oo jackpot on a slot machine in Vegas. The light went on and the tax man arrived with the check. I told them I was Canadian; they gave me a form for the 30% they took, and told me to claim it in Canada ( sort of GFY ..).

I wanted to argue that I had put IN the machine 2000.00 before winning; they laughed and left ...

In the Montreal Casino, you win, you receive and leave with the whole amount ...

Read my lips: NO MORE TAXES.... :1orglaugh

That isn't true! The indians don't pay much of anything in the way of taxes. There are also some Mormon fundamentalists that specialize in drawing more from the government than they have to pay in.