Although the whole Sweepstakes operation is illegal in this country, the Internal Revenue Bureau and state tax collectors aren't a bit hesitant about taking a big bite out of any prize money you win. If the head of a family of four whose annual income is $5,000 wins one of the top Sweeps prizes of $140,000, Uncle Sam's cut is about $85,000, leaving the winner a net of about $55,000. In New York the state takes another $9,500 in income tax, leaving the lucky winner with about $45,000, or less than one-third of his prize. A few winners have tried keeping their good fortune secret, hoping to avoid the tax by not reporting it: but the Internal Revenue boys notify them of their tax burden before they receive the cash. There is one legal gimmick by which a Sweeps purchaser can reduce the lottery result texas bite: he can divide the ownership of the lottery ticket by signing more than one name on the ticket stub. If the head of a family of four who won $140,000 had listed his wife and two children as co-owners each would be entitled to 25%, or $35,000. Filing four separate returns would cut the total $85,000 lottery texas down to about $63,000, a saving to the family of $22,000. This is legal, provided the partnership is in good faith and not just a tax-evasion scheme. Many winners have gone to Dublin to collect, mistakenly believing that this would avoid the U.S. lottery texas bite. Some have even established themselves as bona fide residents of Ireland only to discover later that the Internal Revenue Bureau takes the position that the prize money was won while they were living in the U.S., and that later foreign residence of whatever duration does not exempt them from lottery texas. Uncle Sam has a good memory and a lot of patience, and a winner who doesn't return for years will still find a Treasury man waiting to greet him. Irish or English betting commissioners such as England's biggest betting-commission house, Douglas Stuart Ltd. (commonly known as Duggie's"), manage to siphon off a healthy percentage of Sweeps winnings. It's a safe bet that if you draw a favorite horse to win in the Grand National Steeplechase, the Epsom Downs Derby or the Cambridge shire Stakes, an overseas betting commissioner will contact you a day or so before race time and make you an offer to buy at least a half interest in your ticket. In the 91st drawing they were paying from $10,000 to $15,000 for a half interest on the horse favored to win the Cambridge shire. RAFFLES The oldest, and still very popular, form of lottery texas in America is the raffle, or local drawing. Next to Bingo, raffles are the country's biggest fund raisers for charity. Fraternal organizations, veterans' groups and almost every other kind of organization in the country have benefited at some time from a raffle of some sort. Many raffles have automobiles valued at $2,000 to $15,000 as prizes, with the raffle tickets seffing from a low of 10 to a high of $100. Some drawings have $50,000 and $125,000 homes as their top awards. And, I have known of some raffle tickets on estates that have sold for as much as $1,000 each. The only advice I can give you on local raffle-ticket buying, whether it is legal or illegal in your state, is: Be careful from whom you buy. There are a great many crooked and counterfeit raffle tickets floating around. To sum up, there are hundreds of variations on the general lottery patterns. Depending on the type of lottery and its clientele, the operators return to the winners in prizes somewhere between 10% and 55%.
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