$325 MILLION: Powerball lottery jackpot goes through the roof

Wow..  Very nice house.....good luck ...golfer1960

$325 Million sounds good to me.......

im going halves in 2 tickets, [rob around %35 tax for me in australia, to us gov of course.  but still $78mill buys me everything i want

You bring up a valid concern. What most people don't realize is that lottery winnings are treated like earned income and not investment/capital gains. Our Government WILL be limiting deductions as well as raising taxes on the wealthy starting next year and lord knows where the top rate will be in 10 or 20 years.

Just today alone on a variety of news stations I heard many view points of how someone would spend the $325 million jackpot. These clueless news anchors are insinuating that the winner will get a lump payout of the advertised jackpot amount without mentioning anything about it being an annuity or a little known evil deduction called taxes.

Back in the early 1980's our top Federal tax rate was 70%. Back up a little more to the early 1960's and it was 91%. As a wake up call I will use the rate from the early 1960's just to give you a perspective of what you would be taking home after both Federal and state taxes are witheld. I will not use NJ, NY  or any of the other states with a high tax rate as you would most likely owe the government money if you were the lucky winner.

I will factor in a state tax rate of 7% which is about the average rate among most of the states.

Once again I will be using the top Federal rate from 1963. Most of us would opt for the lump sum cash if we were fortunate enough to win so that amount is $212.8 million. Federal tax at 91% would be $193,648,000 and 7% state tax is $14,896,000 making your net payout $4,256,000.

Wouldn't this be a lovely world if you were the sole winner of a $325 million lottery and took home a little over $4 million 

nooooooooooo.....You are killing me golfer. Who is #1 in college Football?

lol....300 cents!!! I always aim for that 2nd level prize.

An embarrassment of riches!

My guess is if its not hit Saturday it will rollover to over 1/2 a billion. The Mega Million jackpot that was split between 3 winners for 656 Million was from a Rollover of 363 Million. It wasnt hit for 363 Mill and i cant remember what the first advertised Jackpot was but i think they advertised it around 475 million. They sold so many tickets that it ended up going to 656 million. If none hit this they will probably advertise it at over 400 million but by the time Wed rolls around with 4 days to sell tickets im sure it would go over 500 Million easily.

Sounds like a likely scenario.   

Very likely for sure. I just looked back at old stories on it. They first announced it at 476 mill. Less then 12 hrs later they upped it to 500 mill. 12 hrs later they upped it to 540 mill. They then upped it to 640 mill the next day. By the time they drew it ended up at 656 mill. This was with just 3 days between drawings and this one would be with 4 days between drawings. Id like to see it not hit just to see how hi it would go. Well unless i hit it of course lol. They sold 650 million tickests for that drawing by the way.

The number of 2nd place winners always go through the roof when it gets this high. I hope 3 or more people split the jackpot again.

Uncle Sam also wants to make a national sales tax so it won't matter where you live. I would'nt be surprised if lotto tickets get pre-taxed one day.

By how much do you increase your chances of winning the jackpot by purchasing, say, 100, 160 or 200 tickets over just one?

"Chances" improve by 99, 159 and 199. The odds of winning however, are still a drop in the bucket that you'd winner.

You're better off sending Lady Luck a bouquet of her favorite flowers.

Thanks gocart, you too. Good luck!