Everyone wishes that they could win the lottery, but when you imagine getting all of that money, have you ever considered how much money you’re going to end up paying in taxes?
So, first thing, the amount on the sign isn’t necessarily what you’re going to be getting in the first place. You only get that much if you take a long series of smaller partial payments. So if you won a jackpot of $100 million dollars, you’ll probably end up getting about $70 million dollars in a lump sum (and you should always take the lump sum, if you need us too, we’ll explain why).
After that, there are taxes. Federal taxes for huge amounts like $70 million are 39.6% on almost all of that money, so that will be reduced to around $42.3 million. Then, if you live here in NM, you’ll pay another 4.9%, bringing you down to 40.3 million.
That’s about 40% of the original amount on the lottery sign, but it’s still a massive amount of money, more than most people get paid in their entire lives. You might not be able to buy a 200-ft yacht (some of those are hundreds of millions of dollars), but if you’re smart about it you won’t have to worry about money ever again.