[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Florida doesn't impose tax on lottery winnings. I believe you can "gift" up to $25,000 per year, to any individual(s) you want, without them having to declare it as income. You also can't write it off as an expense, but if you donate to a registered charity you can write it off as a charitable contribution on your year-end tax return.

I checked with OmniCalculator and see this:

With a $984 million megamillions winning ticket, the lump sum payout would be $511,680,000.

Federal taxes would be $189,729,688.

So your net payout would be $321,950,312

Over a quarter of a billion dollars. Pretty sure when you win THAT big, you don't have much need to worry about taxes. You can afford to pay them. If you bought a summer home up north by a lake, upgraded your house here in The Villages, got a comfy adobe in Santa Fe for ski weekends, and spent a month every year in Venice Italy, bought yourself a new car and his-and-hers custom golf carts, you'd still have around $200 million after 10 years. You can give $25,000 to your son, AND his wife, AND each of their three kids, and your daughter, and HER husband, and THEIR twin boys, AND pay for your mom's long-term memory care housing and medical bills that medicare doesn't cover, and still have over $100,000 million left over. You can live off the interest of that and die with enough to set your kids and grandkids up with a nice cushion for their own - and THEIR grandchildren's lives.

The gift might be only $18,000 per year. UMTA is up to $18k/year for minors tax-free but the kid can't touch the money until he's at least 18 (up to 25, depending on how the paperwork is filled out when the account is created).

A lottery winner is taxed as income on the entire amount by the IRS. The receiver of gifted money is never taxed, regardless of the amount. A gift is not taxable income. There are estate taxes after death, but there are ways to avoid them by planned gifting while you are alive.