Posted on 04/01/2014 3:27:45 PM PDT by SMGFan
MILPITAS, Calif. – California Lottery officials say the sole winner of February's $425 million Powerball jackpot has come forward to claim the prize.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Will they give you names of tax professionals to help you?
My sister had her own tax people so I don’t know...but I sure wouldn’t accept a tax man any government official recommended.
That's barely a Living Wage!!
You need to collect in the name of the Trust or Foundation so that YOUR identity is not revealed.
The Check must be made payable to Somebody/thing.
THAT is HOW your identity is protected.
I don’t believe California is one of the few ‘anonymous lottery winner’ states, which is a very bad idea anyway.
California is, however, a state that does not tax lottery jackpots.
1. Tell nobody for the time being, except maybe your spouse and only then if the marriage is good and you trust him/her to not tell anybody else.
2. Sign the back of it
3. Make multiple photocopies of front and back and store in several places. Then make a PDF of it and store electronic copies on your hard drive and in the Cloud.
4. Put the original in a safety deposit box at the bank.
5. Wait at least a week and go about your normal activities. Yes, it will be hard. But you need to let it sink in.
6. After a week or so, call or find a lawyer you can trust and follow the instructions you are given.
7. Find and hire a professional accountant/financial planner and plan how you will allocate/invest your winnings BEFORE claiming the prize.
8. Get your affairs in order. Quit your job. Change your phone number. Pull down all your social media profiles. Think about where you want to move.
9. Claim your prize
10. Go on an extended vacation. Get yourself setup in your new home. Let your lawyer sell your old home. Keep a low profile. Then slowly reach out to the family members/friends that you can trust but by and large, you will want to leave your old life behind and make new friends. Be smart! Be careful! You don't want to become another sad story like so many other lottery winners.
I was doing good until I got to #6.
I’ve got one of those. My daughter-in-law is an estate/trust attorney.
Wow. Kinda like when the Feds put someone in the witness protection program. An entire new life and identity...
Is it really worth it?
I am a professional accountant. The rest is a little paranoid for me.
Oh, I don’t have a life or friends so I’m covered! /s
You’d be surprised how much you’d be willing to pay in taxes, for the sake of anonymously receiving your prize money.
Of course you could lose a winning ticket and still get it all although this case is indeed a rarity.
I wonder if that would work. Wouldn’t they look at your residency at the time of the win?
If the state is fronting the winnings I guess they don’t need to collect taxes. They can work that out in the basic winnings formula to the winners. No use giving money and then taking it back. Maybe they got that one right.
Residency at the time of CLAIM!
You’ll have 6 months to claim it, so wait long enough to establish residency.
It will also have minimized the attention of the vultures.
Keep in mind, it is quite reasonable to set up the foundation specifically for the purposes of claiming the prize anonymously, AFTER the drawing.
You can also create multiple layers of closely held companies, to further disassociate yourself from the claiming Foundation.
The Lottery folks don’t care.
Also remember, this isn’t about trying to fool the IRS, as they’ll get their portion, and THEY will know who you are.
There have been MANY anonymous lottery winners over the years and no record of the IRS outing them.
If they did, I’d sue their @$$off for endangering my family.
While I’m sure that would be most people’s first instinct, most of us, me included couldn’t wait to get our hands on the dough, that’s actually a very bad idea. Impulse is not the lottery winner’s friend.
The smart and savvy things to do before coming forward and shortly after are:
Find a really good attorney(s), preferably a large firm, one with experience in this area, one dealing with many very wealthy clients and knowledgeable and experienced in tax law and in estate planning. This is where you don’t want to hire your best friend’s best friend’s hair dressers cousin named Vinney who just got out of law school.
Similarly find a really good reputable accounting firm for preparing and filing your tax returns.
Line up a certified fee only investment advisor, interview several, and come up with a solid long term investment strategy. You don’t need to invest aggressively but you need to invest - wisely and with diversity. And as good as your advisor and tax accountant are, you still need to educate yourself. You don’t want to just sign off on the tax returns without understanding them - you don’t want to put your investment statements in a shoe box without ever looking at them or understanding what they say. That’s not to say you should ignore or dismiss good and sound advice but with that much money you need to know the difference.
Note that the above three should all come from different firms with no close association or ties with each other and have them all be watch dogs over the others, i.e. have the tax attorney review the tax returns, have the accounting firm review the investment strategy and so on – not that you want confusing and conflicting advice but you don’t want one firm or most importantly one person handling your financial affairs. Many people think they can manage this on their own and most of them end up bankrupted or with IRS tax liens within a few years later.
Move to temporary digs with a forwarding address to a PO Box, get an unlisted phone number, change your email address, disconnect from all social media (i.e. Facebook, etc.) and otherwise, lie low, act like everything is normal, don’t suddenly quit your job and don’t tell ANYONE save for “maybe” your spouse! Take time to let it all sink in and line up your strategy. You have time to collect the jackpot. Rushing to collect it without a plan is a recipe for disaster.
Before claiming or collecting the money, write up your wish list of stuff you want to spend the money on. Take the first list and shred it and start over, rinse and repeat several more times, each time paring it down to what you really want, what is really important to you and not just the stuff you can suddenly buy because you can. In fact it’s best to spend as little money as possible the first year. It takes time for everything to shake it all out tax and investment wise. It also takes some time to grasp just how much money you really have, after taxes, after the fees and expenses you never had before, after you’ve had time to adjust. While 400 million even after taxes is a lot of money it’s not a limitless well. Dip into that well recklessly and impulsively and it will run dry very soon, sooner than you think.
Once you come up with your list that might include a new 6 bedroom 6 bath house with a pool, some acreage, a new car, a horse, a boat, some travel, etc. create a monthly budget. Keep in mind that you may be able to outright buy, with cash that big house of your dreams, and your dream car(s), a new pickup truck, maybe even a Bugatti (and wouldn’t I just love to drive that around town) and that a big boat, that horse, understand that all those have high maintenance costs, probably higher than you even imagine; there is property tax, utilities, furniture, insurance, dock fees, gas, vet bills, and if you think your wife (or husband) is going to clean six bathrooms and mow and keep up with all that landscaping, you are dreaming. You need to come up with a monthly budget that captures all those new recurring expenses and stick with the budget. That’s not to say you shouldn’t have some fun and treat yourself but you don’t have to cram it all in during the first year. A good sound budget is an invaluable tool to have whether you make minimum wage or have 140 million but a budget is only as good as how realistic it is and how disciplined you are to stick with it.
Perhaps most importantly you will have to learn that NO is a complete sentence, it is one of the most beautiful words in the English language and one requires no further explanation. People; long lost friends and relatives you haven’t spoken to or seen for years and co-workers and complete strangers will come out of the woodwork to hit you up for money, sometimes even seemly for good causes – don’t do it. If you have really close family members or friends you want to help out (because they have been there for you when you didn’t have a pot to pi$$ in or a window to throw it out of), offer to do things like paying off their mortgage or their car payment or student loan debt, things that will make their life a bit easier but not change them or your relationship dramatically. Do not give anyone big cash gifts and make this a one-time, emphatically a “don’t come back to me asking for more” gift. If you have kids or grandkids, set up trust funds for their education or a reasonable amount of money once they hit a certain age, probably 30 or so, just enough to buy a reasonably priced starter home and don’t be afraid to put some contingencies on it, like they have to have graduated from college with a meaningful and use full degree or finish a trade school program and be gainfully employed and have no criminal record at the time they collect.
I recall the story of a big lottery winner some years ago; I think he was from WV. He loved his granddaughter and denied her nothing she asked for. He bought her many expensive cars and gave her unlimited amounts of cash. She fell into a bad crowd who became her “friend” only because she had this money and within a few short years, she was a drug addict and died from a drug overdose. He said that winning the lottery was worse thing that ever happened to him. It wasn’t really, it could have been a completely different outcome but he had no self control himself and didn’t realize how giving an impressionable teenager cars and cash with no limits might turn out badly.
And while your BIL might be a really great guy and a very talented auto mechanic, carpenter, short order cook, whatever, don’t go into business with him. A lot of lottery winners have lost tons of money by investing in a family member’s new or currently failing business venture or decide to start their own “dream” business without having a clue of what’s really involved and sink money into it as they think they can even as most investors would have pulled and taken the loss long before. Investments should be made without any personal emotion.
If you want to give to worthy charities, do your homework and don’t fall for every sob story that comes your way (and may will) and look into setting a charitable trust as they, if properly set up can have tax advantages so this is where a good tax attorney comes in. And speaking of attorneys, you may have led a squeaky clean, honest life but it’s almost guaranteed that if your name get’s out, somebody is going to try to sue you.
If you bought your ticket in a state that allows you to remain anonymous, remain anonymous. Don’t allow yourself to be pressured into giving media interviews, if you have to publicly claim your prize, have to have your picture taken, give a public statement, think about hiring a public relations expert and a security expert. If you bought your ticket in a state that will release your name, protect yourself and your family, give as few personal details as the state laws allow. If you can set up a trust to collect the money look into it but be very careful. Trusts are often a matter of public record so if someone really wants to find out who you are and what family members you name in the trust, they often can and if you don’t set up the trust properly you could lose control of your money to an unscrupulous lawyer.
As you can see, I have “plan” but then again I rarely buy a lottery ticket, maybe one or two a year when the jackpot is big and I have a $ to spare and I’ve yet to win and I don’t count on doing so. But if I ever do win a big jackpot, I can guarantee you that I won’t be telling anyone here :), There will be no vanity post - “I just won the lottery so I’m donating a $ million to FR” : ),
Do you want to share with family? The gift tax is astronomical at certain levels
That’s what your lawyer is for. Determine percentage ownership in the prize so their half-percent share would not be hit by the additional tax on gifts.
You’ve thought this out! lol
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