If I were to manage to claim such a prize anonymously, I’m really not sure whom I’d tell. I might well not even tell my family - or anyone not bound by professional conduct - until I was settled. Camelot provide professional advice to big winners and it would be foolish to not at least listen.
The odds are 1 in 70 million per line, or, for me, 0 in 70 million, as I haven’t bought a ticket.
First, my brother and I have agreed to split if either of us wins.
I wouldn’t fool w/ any investment advisors. Put a chunk in jumbo CD’s, some in
various length treasuries, some in mutuals. Open several savings accounts for
liquidity, plus a couple money market accounts.
Before I collected I’d clean out my house, throw away most of the stuff, put most of
the rest in storage. Then check into a good hotel w/ arrangement that my occupancy
was incommunicado.
While I was making the financial arrangements, I’d also be making travel plans. In a
couple weeks, I’m gone. See you in a year or so.
I’m not trying to nitpick, seriously. But I still don’t understand how any of that prevents me from having my lawyer take the ticket. Assuming I never filled out any of that information, he can fill it out himself and claim the ticket as the legal owner. The lottery commission would have absolutely no knowledge that we had a contract whereby he’d turn over the money to me after he’d legally claimed it.
So you’re going to trust this lawyer to write up a contract whereby he takes ownership of a multimillion dollar lotto ticket and then gives you all of it back, minus a fee I assume. Good luck w/ that.
sigh
I understand your point, and yes, I’m taking a “perfect world” view of this scenario. Hell, if I’m going to fantasize about winning the lottery, I can dream that I can find a perfectly legitimate lawyer who will honor a contract. However, none of that has anything to do with my actual question.
I’m just trying to figure out if that’s a valid method of skirting the publicity of having to claim your ticket in person.
Am I the only one that would be so freaking paranoid that any investment advisor (or lawyer for that matter) I got would be out to rob me blind?
Whoever holds a ticket is the legal owner of said ticket. Think about it, it won’t work any other way.
If you hand your ticket to your lawyer and he skips, what are you going to do, sue for breach of contract and get your money in eight years or so if he doesn’t go to Brazil? Following him to the office to cash in with weaponry in your hand seems like it would defeat the anonymity purpose.
Now, assume you lawyer decides to be honest with you. He claims the ticket as his own, and they deduct 40% of your gazillion dollars on the spot, and credit it to the lawyer’s tax account. Then your lawyer deducts his 10% fee.
Then the lawyer pays you the remaining 50% for “Services Rendered” or some crap. Then YOU pay 40% taxes on that income. Under the best case scenario, you wind up with 30% of your winnings. Best to cash the ticket yourself. Besides, wealth, like rank, has its privileges. No need to worry about being anonymous, 'cause a rich bastard can tell anybody he wants to to fuck off.
Best thing to do is go, cash in your ticket and deposit the check in a savings account at your bank until you can get the other details worked out. Finance ain’t rocket science. A.R. Cane nailed a good, simple investment system in one short post.
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There need be no more to it than that.
Here in Ontario you don’t pay tax on lottery winnings. If it says it’s a $20 million jackpot and you have the winning ticket, you walk in, give them the ticket, and they give you a check for twenty million bucks. Then they take a few photos and publicize it and such.
I’d just drive to the lottery office - it’s not far from here - pick up the check then go to my bank and deposit it. Then I’d worry about financial advice. I want the money in my account.
In any event, it’s not that complicated. Buy a house, buy a few reasonable cars, pay off the debt, set aside some crazy money, and go to my investments guy and have him help me spread it around.
There’s still income tax to be paid at the end of the year, correct?
Only on the interest you might collect from your investments, not on the $20 mill itself. If you decided to stuff your winnings into your mattress and derive no actual income from it, the tax impact is zero.
I know somebody I could ask for advice. I heard one of my high school teachers won the lottery for $33 million dollars. She and her husband built an ugly faux Victorian house (with blue vinyl siding) here in town.
I’d listen to what she has to say and run screaming in the other direction.
Aside from the lawyers and accountans, etc., once all my ducks were in a row, I would wait for the busiest friggen newsday to cash it in. Minnesota requires that you can’t remain anonymous.
In tens and twentys.
**Asimovian, ** I almost hate to do this to you. The tax liability on the winnings would vary widely according to what you did with the money. You could take your money and see a financial advisor about that. Your lawyer, however, can’t do anything with the money but honor his contract, which means the taxes will be pretty stiff.
Actually I hadn’t thought about it either until I saw a piece in the Financial Times (Sorry, no link) where a reported posed as a high-net-worth client. After grilling the guy to figure out how he came into $15 million they treated him pretty well.
And why bother with getting the super secret comp cards in Vegas when your new potential financial advisor could probably make a couple of calls and get you hooked up in Monte Carlo?
My brother is a CPA and has been CFO of several companies. I’d talk to him - I trust him and I expect he could recommend who’d take care of me.
I’d do so by ticket holder proxy for publicity purposes, in the cheapest and most circumspect way possible.
Annonymously? Shit, I’d take out a full page ad in the New Jersey Record and New York Times–I AM RICH AND YOU ARE NOT!
I was thinking ‘in nickels’.
No, this is what I’m talking about.