I’ve heard rumours but don’t know the skinny on what really happens when someone wins big on t.v.
Does the 'I won a Million’aire go home with $1,000,000 or is it less? How much less?
TIA - Graham
Generally, for $1 million, I think the winner gets a nice little check soon after winning, and about $50,000 a year for however many more years…The winner has a choice of taking home a lump sum at once, but it’s only around 1/3 of the total prize. Of course, this may be different with each game show, but you should be able to find out pretty easily. (I was really just looking to post for the first time)
WWTBAM offers no choice - you take all million at once. Then, next April 15th, the government takes most of it back.
I figured something like that… but it would mean you need to save a bit for April… but how much?
What sort of percentage are you running into at a $1M year? Is Sam taking 30%? 40%? more?
cheers - Graham
No, no, no. On any winnings over a certain amount, there is a 20% Federal witholding. Thus, if “millionaire” was a “lump-sum” million (which I do not know, someone should watch for the fine print), one would get a check for 800K. Likely that would throw you into the high bracket, ie about 40% Feds. I do not know about State taxes, assuming it is a NY show, the state of NY, etc would prob want their cut, also. It is possible that Albany would ask for a witholding % also.
And you would be advised to pay the other 20%+/- Federal tax in estimated tax payments to avoid any est tax penalty, and not wait until April 15th.
There was a story on the local news recently about a guy from Minneapolis that won a Camaro on The Price Is Right. He had to pay $1,500 to be able to take possession of it.
The winnings are taxed as regular income by both the feds and the state. A recent documentary on the show had a tax advisor explaining that the million dollar winner takes a tax hit of around $360,000 on the federal level.
State taxes are only from the winner’s home state. That means residents of states like N.H. or Texas go home with a cool $640k after taxes. People dim enough to live in tax-happy states like NY, however, will wind up blowing another $80,000-$100,000 in state income taxes, reducing the winnings to about $550k. Still a decent piece of change, but not the kind of thing that will buy you the house next to Madonna’s.
Moral: The day before I get on the show, rent an apartment in Texas.
Nurlman: some States yax you on any income YOU earn in their state.
That’s TAX, not “yax”. “Yax” is the noise you make when you get the tax bill. 
You can’t calculate exactly how much the taxes are unless you know how many people they have in their family, etc. But thats about right, that they come out with around 550k as one show said that.
If you get a car, you have to pay taxes & license on it. Thats why a lot of people sell it after winning because they can’t pay those. Take the value of the car & use that as income. Im not sure if they have to pay sales tax on it too, that might vary by state.
Here in Texas, if you win $600 or more at the racetrack, 20% is withheld. The IRS is right there on site to help you with this.
Here’s a thought…on the T.V. show ‘Survivor’, they are on some jerk water island in the South Pacific (I think Palau if memory serves me). Last person left on the island gets $1 million which they both ‘earned’ and will receive on that island.
Since they receive it and earn it outside the U.S., beyond paying whatever nominal taxes Palau has, can’t you wire that money to your account in the US scot-free of taxes? Or are you theoretically considered a ‘temporary employee’ of the US-based television company, and thus must pay the full amount?
Well, I’m SURE the government fucks you somehow when you come back, but if not as a ‘temporary employee’, how do they do it? Any tax law experts out there?
Forget Texas. Just rent a post office box in Nevada. No state income tax at all.
I saw a news report on the prizes on The Price Is Right. They have huge warehouses full of prizes that have yet to be claimed because the people who won could not pay off the tax necessary on the prizes. That’s why I like being up here in Canada: no prize taxes. Sure, we don’t have any major game shows, but all of the lottery prizes are tax free. 
Now if I could just win one…
silent_rob scratches another scrath-and-win
ticket and shakes his head in disgust
You see Commander, they call that “tax fraud”- but you are right, prisoners pay little or none state income tax.
There’s no state income tax in Texas.
Survivor is taking place on an island called “Pulau Tiga,” off the coast of Sabah Island in Malaysia. However, not everybody appears to agree on the spelling of the place, and some media outlets are spelling it “Palau Tiga.”
The Republic of Palau is only about 700 miles to the east of Pulau Tiga, and when places like CNN start reporting that Survivor takes place on Palau Tiga, confusion is inevitable. Having spent a year living in Palau and written about that experience on my website, I’ve started to get e-mails from people asking if I lived on the Survivor island, and if I know who wins.
In any event, the tax issue involving the Survivor winners is not complicated. U.S. citizens have to declare as income on their U.S. tax return any money earned overseas. If they’ve lived overseas for 300 consecutive days in the tax year, they can deduct some foreign earned income, but the Survivor people, who are there only about two months, won’t make the cutoff. Plus, the maximum foreign earned income exclusion is only about $75,000, so it wouldn’t help the contestants much anyway.
Nurlman:
Recalling my one WestPac deployment from my Navy years, “pulau” seems to be the Malay word for “island.”
The Japanese word for “island” is “-jima;” hence Iwo Jima. When my ship went from Yokosuka, Japan to Subic Bay in the Philippines in 1990, I could tell we were moving out of Japanese-influenced waters and into the Philippines/Malaysian/Indonesian realm because the names of the islands on our charts were switching from “_____-jima” to “Pulau _____.”
“Pulau Tiga,” is actually a state park, isn’t it?
There was much discussion here before that if you were an english citizen working in the US that you have to pay UK taxes too, on your earnings. They have a very high tax rate too. But we have an agreement with them so that you can’t get double taxed.