Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 March 5

= March 5 =

Mega Millions lottery winner of 1.5 billion
I just read this. So, they decided to take around half immediately, then lose taxes. Are those taxes like sales tax? When they do their personal taxes, will they have to pay income tax on that too? What will they have left? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:30, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Fairly sure those are just withholding taxes i.e. they are effectively personal incomes taxes. Don't know about the state taxes, but per this source [//www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2018/10/23/1-6-billion-mega-millions-lottery-winner-faces-huge-taxes-possible-lawsuits/], it's unlikely the 24% will cover their income tax bill which will probably be 37% of their winnings (plus whatever else they've earned). I'm not a lawyer or an accountant, this isn't legal advice etc, but for such a simple windfall gain/win, it seems unlikely anything can be done to reduce the marginal rate significantly below 37%, unless they happen to be very rich already and somehow had huge losses. (Living outside the US etc doesn't seem relevant in this case.) 05:41, 5 March 2019 (UTC) Nil Einne (talk)
 * As of today, the Federal withholding tax is 25%. South Carolina's withholding tax is 7%. The county (Greenville) and city (Simpsonville) do not have withholding taxes. He will also pay income tax when he files taxes in 2020. That is difficult to quantify because tax law is a mess. 68.115.219.139 (talk) 17:40, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * "He will also pay..." "The commission will not even reveal if the winner is a man or a woman." Bus stop (talk) 18:13, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * What I recall of what I read earlier matches up with the 25% and 7% figures. (Edit: What I read is here and actually the reported figures are 24% and 7%.) What I wasn't able to figure out is if one is applied before the other or if they're applied to the entire sum at the same time. So, they're getting something like $877 million. Does the 25% come out first and then the 7% taxed on that new lower figure? Vice versa? Or are both the 25 and 7 applied to the whole $877 million figure? † dismas †|(talk) 18:17, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The commission isn't saying who he is, but he walked into work and quit the day he won. His identity isn't truly anonymous for people who live in Simpsonville. But, that isn't important. What is important is how withholding tax is applied. That varies from state to state. In South Carolina, the entire winnings are taxed - including the amount of the winnings withheld by the Federal government. But, you get to claim the withheld income on taxes (you have to claim the ENTIRE amount as income, not just what you put in the bank). This is all a big buzz here (in Simpsonville) for obvious reasons. The morning news is flooded with information about lottery taxes and liabilities. 68.115.219.139 (talk) 18:28, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I am confused, I don't get why the 25% federal and 7% state withholding tax is not applied to 1.5 billion, rather than 877 millions. Who gets the other 623 millions? Does s/he get that later on? --Lgriot (talk) 18:57, 5 March 2019 (UTC)18:56, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The state keeps it. The way the Mega Millions works is the winner has two options to take their prize money: They can take the full winnings payable as a 20-year annuity (1/20th per year) OR they can take a one-time lump-sum payment, but they only get 60% of the winnings.  Many people take the lump sum over the annuity, because many figure they can make investments with it to do better over time than the annuity would give them.  -- Jayron 32 19:17, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, from what I've read this is typical of lotteries and big-money game shows in the US. They announce a large prize amount but there'll be fine print where it says that that's the total amount if you take payments over 20 years or whatever.  Another example is Rule 5 here.  Living as I do in a country where the amount the lottery announces is the amount the winner gets, and it's not taxable income either, the US style comes across to me as hype. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 00:22, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

So, what's the bottom line consensus here, or is this ongoing? What will he they walk away with? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Both the state income tax and the federal income tax are computed on the entire amount received. There are some caveats here. First, a minority of states don’t have a state income tax, so only the federal tax, on the entire amount, applies. Second, the amount of state income taxes paid is deductible (subtractable) from federal income, lowering the federal taxes due. In any event, the state income tax rate varies widely from one state to another. So how much the winner ends up getting after taxes depends on his or her state of residence. Loraof (talk) 15:23, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Also, BOTH sets of income taxes are also dependent on one's tax bracket, and taxable income based on a variety of factors, not just on the lottery winnings. A persons income aside from the lottery itself would come into factor.  Also, taxable income is graduated, which means that a person is taxed a certain rate for their first, say, $100,000 income (making up a number for demonstration) then a higher rate only on income between $100,000 and say $500,000 and a higher rate from $500,000 to their next higher point, and so on.  So, calculating the amount of nominal tax from winning a lottery a person owes is not as simple as multiplying the nominal tax rate times the amount: the winnings go into the total amount of a person's income, and a variety of calculations come into play to calculate their tax burden.  -- Jayron 32 17:52, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * While I don't disagree coming out with the exact amount is complicated, I still suspect you can come up with a a number within ~5% or so of the real one which would apply to most circumstances of a single winner. If it's a couple, syndicate or the person has very unusual circumstances or gifts a lot of the money then you start to have problems (like some of those mentioned in my earlier source). I was initially thinking this was unlikely but in retrospect, I guess the SC lottery board probably wouldn't know or care unless there's some dispute. Anyway assuming that it is just a single winner, to give an example, while it may seem the person having an existing annual income of $10 million compared to one of $0 makes a big difference, we're talking about a new income of over $877 million so not really. The state may be a problem, I assumed that winner being South Carolinian meant this would be their state of residence but since the US federal tax year is just a calendar year and I think it's the same for most of all states, I guess maybe they still have time to change their state of residence. I mean clearly the winner would be dumb not to consult a professional especially if they have anything complicated. But even if they save $10 million on their tax bill that's a lot of money, but still not even 2% of their winnings/ So is only a small change to their marginal rate or an estimate of what they end up with. (To put it a different way, compare ending up with $510 million to $500 million.) I don't disagree with the first IP in this thread that the US tax code is very complicated, but my impression from all I've read is that a lot of this is stuff which either makes a bigger difference at a lower level, or requires you to be able to structure your finances in a way which the winner can do with the proceeds of their winnings, but couldn't do with the income that is their winnings. (Maybe not the best wording, but hopefully people get the idea.) Assuming a single winner, I guess one of the biggest unknown is whether they donate a lot of money. Nil Einne (talk) 07:37, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * To add to the complication... The assumed winner is from another country. (Yes - it could be that he walked into work, quit his job, said he never had to work again, and then sold his house for a completely unrelated reason. But, it is assumed he won the lottery.) He has no reason to hang around in the United States now. So, he could easily move back home or to another country. Then, he won't need to worry about filing taxes in the United States at all. They'll want him to, but what can they do? I'm sure there's a few nice choices of places to live that charge very low taxes on the rich. Monaco? 68.115.219.139 (talk) 18:41, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Better check the List of United States extradition treaties first. Unilynx (talk) 23:00, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

So, bottom line walkaway for the winner? Best guess? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:34, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Sales tax on purchase of original ticket
Was there sales tax on the purchase of the original ticket? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:21, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * No. You pay $1 for a ticket and $1 for the Powerball multiplier. You may be interested in the fact that you can only buy tickets with cash, not credit or debit cards or checks. Because much of the money goes to the state, many consider the lottery a voluntary tax. 71.12.10.227 (talk) 01:46, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Understood, and interesting. Thank you kindly. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:02, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Total ticket sales revenue
Does anyone know what governments earned on these tickets? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:34, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Germanic numbers
I'm not sure if this question belongs here or in Languages as this has a practical usage part as well, but I see this as a primarily historical topic so I'll ask here.

Did any ancient Germanic or Nordic peoples utilise any numerical system of glyphs, logograms or pictographs, that aren't Futhark notations, tally marks, or Roman numerals, before the adoption of Arabic numerals? If not, how would they most likely convey numbers in storytelling or written records (For example, of a calendar, or if recording 5 stockpiles of wood, "fimf" would be fully spelled out in runes instead of a glyph representing a numeral)? If they extensively used tallies, what clustering order was most likely? The closest I could find on my own research is Pentimal system, but I am under the firm belief that it is entirely fictitious and possibly misconstrued by wiccan or neo-pagan practices. Thank you in advance --72.235.231.236 (talk) 19:56, 5 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The Tune stone (third century?) and the Gummarp Runestone(sixth century?) both spell out the numeral three in runes. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 21:50, 5 March 2019 (UTC)


 * For another example, the Rök stone spells out many numbers in runes, including 5 (fim), 9 (niu), 12 (tualf) and even 20 (tuaiʀ tikiʀ). Haukur (talk) 21:40, 7 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The pentimal system seems to go back about two centuries or more for the limited purpose of writing numbers 1 through 19, and is not fictitious in that sense (though extensions of it are certainly extremely dubious). AnonMoos (talk) 02:52, 6 March 2019 (UTC)