Comment by mcbits | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mcbits | Hacker News Reader

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I really disagree with the common advice to take the lump sum - unless the winner is elderly. It seems to be centered on the idea that you can earn more interest/dividends yourself, but there are a few problems with that.

1. To get higher rates of return, you expose yourself to more risk of losses. The risk is real, i.e., you could lose everything.

2. You need even better (riskier) returns to pay for all the legal/investment/accounting advice because lottery winners rarely have experience here, at least not in the first year.

3. You need even better returns (and more risk) to make up for the taxes you pay up front. The annuity is based on pre-tax funds, and federal tax is much higher than the 25% initial withholding.

4. A $2-3 million windfall is more than enough to live on a sensible six-figure budget and get some practice with investing. If you screw up, you get another windfall next year. Just avoid debt.

5. Will taxes go up in 10 years? Who cares. They won't go to 100%. Even if you lose everything for 9 years straight, you'll still be rich in 10 years with far more certainty than if you took the lump sum. Just stay out of debt.

You are ignoring political risk eg in 15 years that state government changes the rules and sequesters the money - this actually happened in the UK to the SERP pension I lost mine for a small uplift in the state pension when they changed the rules.

You also ignoring the time value of money 100 million to day is worth more than 10 million for 10 years

> You also ignoring the time value of money 100 million to day is worth more than 10 million for 10 years

The "now" and "later" lottery payment options do not offer equal nominal amounts, so it doesn't make sense to just say "you're ignoring the time value of money". The regular payment pays out more nominal money because of the time value of money. You could argue that they're getting it wrong, but that's a radically different argument.

Depends on 1 how old you are and 2 your health

Illinois has had difficulty recently paying lottery winnings to citizens. In 2015, 3900 winning tickets had delayed payouts [0]. Risk should always be factored into financial decisions, and risk of a lottery institution going insolvent is non-zero.

[0] http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/27/news/illinois-lottery-state-...

They did pay, but yes, nothing is completely risk-free. The risk of a lottery winner losing their lump sum to mismanagement, fraud, etc. is still a lot higher than the risk of a state going belly-up, although maybe Illinois will be the one to change that.

> You also ignoring the time value of money 100 million to day is worth more than 10 million for 10 years

The lump sum is generally pretty close to what an annuity from a reputable company would cost, so the time value of money is already factored into it. Of course, you might prefer a riskier investment for higher returns, but that is really dependent on your risk tolerance, it's not a complete no-brainer to go with the lump sum.

Your point three doesn't seem very accurate.

First, the withholding rate is immaterial, it's clearly not enough to meet the tax obligations, you'll owe much more, and should start paying quarterly estimated taxes right away.

Because the annuity is pre-tax, the annuity payments will be taxable. There is some positive tax benefit of spreading the income over many years, because you have a lower marginal tax rate on the bottom of the bracket, but if the annual payments are $2-3 million, there's still a large amount taxed at the maximum rates.

In addition, if you take the lump sum, and invest it, your gains will likely be in the form of qualified dividends, and long term capital gains, which have more favorable tax treatment. If you invest in tax-exempt bonds, you won't pay any tax on the bond payments (but can still have taxable capital gains or losses on the bonds themselves).

The behavioral factors are much more compelling.

I would also take issue with 2; you can take the lump sum and dump it in a Target Date 2030 fund, and be done with it. It's not tax optimized, but whatever, it's easy and done. Yes, you need an estate attorney to help you draw up wills and/or living trusts, but that's not a big deal either. Also, get a big umbrella insurance policy to cover whatever. Because there's no way to shelter the lump sum (or annuity) payments from taxes, and because future capital gains will have preferential treatment, there's not much reason to spend a lot of effort on heroic tax avoidance. You probably need to spend a little bit more on legal advice when you take up new ventures than you would otherwise, but that's only needed when you take up the new venture.

Huh? You could still have all those benefits if you took the lump sum. Just put it in index funds and extract as needed. Stocks deemed too risky? Put it in bonds. It will still be better than the pathetic interest rate offered by the lottery's annuity.

If you win the Powerball tomorrow and take the annuity, you'll take home about $2 million after taxes. You can put $1 million in index funds and try to scrape by on the other $1 million for a year, by which time you'll be more knowledgeable and better equipped to deal with next year's slightly larger payout. I'm assuming the abstract "you" are a typical lottery winner and not an experienced and well-connected investment banker.

The main reason to take the lump sum is if you want to do things that cost more than the annuity. For example, starting a company, purchasing a company, running a political campaign, giving a large donation (e.g. endowing a position at a university), etc.

Those are just a few of the ways a typical rags-to-riches lottery winner (with tons of encouragement from an entourage of friendly and helpful advisors) is likely to end up broke in 10 years, and exactly why I'd expect the annuity to be more profitable for them in the long run.

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