I WON the Lottery, I need some help!!?

Question

I won 3 million dollars cash after the Lump Sum, i want to know how to invest it and what to invest it on, 3 million is not a lot of money, so i want to be able to keep it and last forever which bank should i deposit the check in TELL me the best 3 banks outhere in the USA? and whats the most i could write a check to someone without them paying Taxes. thanks

Answer 1

Congrats.

You asked about the best banks in the US, so check out the link to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the government company that insures bank balances (to $100k per bank you have money in). They list the bank ranking companies you can consult for that information.

As for the other, $12k is the biggest gift you can give an individual without someone having to pay taxes on it--except for gifts to a child, $1 million is the limit there, before the tax man gets an extra piece from someone.

There is an extra trick, however, you can pay someone else's bills, as long as you aren't just giving money to that person for that person to pay the bills. So if you want to pay off my mortgage, while it is over the $12k number, if YOU wrote the check and YOU mailed it to my bank to apply to my account, then neither of us will pay extra for such generousity. Again, if you wanted to give me money to pay off the mortgage, since that would be over $12, then one of us will have to pay a gift tax on that money.

Because of the uncertainty of the world today, it wouldn't hurt an awful lot if you searched out 30 FDIC-insured banks, got a jumbo CD ($100k each) and opted for them to send you a check. You could use a site like bankrate.com to find highest paying banks (see link below), or you could get a list like the one for Missouri below at your state banking examiners and simply go down the list and check until you have a list of your own. Notice on the list that many banks have websites and they will advertise what their rates are. Some could even open accounts online.

The advantage of doing this inside your state is that you are only obligated for state taxes in your state, which you are going to be paying them anyway. In several states, if you have earnings in their state, they want to tax you again for the whole earnings thing in your state whether your state taxed you or not--so you are paying extra taxes, big time. There are states, like Texas, Florida, and Washington that don't have income taxes, but caution, for some of their cities might have one.

So if you plant your money in 30 banks, feeding earned interest each month to still another bank, you will do quite well. Again, congratulations.

Answer 2

Well I hope you are joking, because only a fool would solicit advice on how to handle $3M from strangers on line, and they always say "a fool and his money are soon parted"!

But if you AREN'T joking, you wouldn't want to put $3M in a regular bank account, LOL! Regular accounts are only insured against loss up to $100,000 each, so you'd have to open 30 accounts to be "safe"!

Any of the bigger banks that have a Securities partner (I like Wachovia, myself, but they are all basically the same) will be more than happy to help you. Make an appointment to speak with a manager, wear a suit, and be very business-like. You don't want them thinking THEY'VE won the lottery!

You can give gifts of cash up to $10,000 without it being a taxable event, I believe.

$3M is no small sum, but it isn't that much either. If you invested ALL of it into some moderately conservative low-expense ratio* mutual funds, you could pull ~$150,000 a year out forever, and it would never shrink!

*Stress "low-expense ratio" with the broker, or they'll sell you all kinds of weird things that pay THEM wonderful commissions.

Congratulations, and good luck!

Answer 3

You should be able to live well forever with $3 mil capital by investing it wisely. But banks are not in that relm of investments. You need to take a few small but managable risks. Break the sum into 3 parts. Put 1/3 in t-bills. Current yield is abou 5%. Very safe. Put 1/3 in municipal bonds. Current yield about 4% but tax free. The remaining 1/3 put in a broad range of equity based mutual funds and index funds about 1/2 invested outside the U S. This is the portion that will keep you ahead of inflation but may fluxuate greatly in value. That breakdown should yield you over $100,000 a year in income with only a minor tax burden.

Answer 4

What Muncie said.
You should get a brokerage account. Go to the Charles Schwab office in your city and talk to someone there about setting up an account you can access from the internet. Then you need to look for low risk mutual funds in which to invest your money, so that you can get a reasonable return that you can live on, while maintaining the principal.

Good luck, I wish I were in your shoes.

Answer 5

if u trully won the lottery... I can recommend investing it into a hedge fund... do not aviod paying taxes on 3 million dollars.. now if it was 300 million that would be enough to consider the option... my advice is pay the taxes and play the market

Answer 6

first write me check for a couple thousand dollars, then open an account that offers aggressive interest with 1.5 million, call a bank then and they will give you good ideas and explain exactly what i mean, and the rest invest it in real estate for example.
P.S.: Don't forget to write me the check, even $20,000, or $10,000 would help a lot.

Answer 7

YOU NEED TO GET REAL
There's so many people out there that 'loose' all there winnings as they spend it on depriciating objekts. You need to invest into objects that Appriciate! Like Real Estate!
I just started a program that specializes on foreclosure, but there's a few courses out there that would be VERY important to you.
Obviously you are trying to make it work longterm for you!
go to WIAcademy.com and check out there program, i'm struggleing to come up with the fees at the moment, but i'll be there very soon.
so good luck!
Mel

Answer 8

For 2007, you can give up to $12,000 per year without you, not them, paying a gift tax.

Answer 9

Don't ask that here or you'll get 50,000 creeps for every one honest answer!! Get a financial specialist who knows your family or best friend ASAP.

I'm a good charity. LOL j/k

Answer 10

Deposit the check into my acccount...I'll take good care of it...-_-