errrm....
Why?
An anonymous South Londoner has been named as the winner of a pseudo lottery designed to (hopefully) make one Reddit user a millionaire. A Redditor who goes under the name Emphursis was picked from the posters at a sub-Reddit called Millionaire Makers. Other forum folk have been asked to each pledge one dollar to him, in the …
I am not an Accountant but if this can be classed as winnings on a game then AFAIK it's tax-exempt.
Nor am I a Landshark but if the rules were clear, along the lines of "If you post on this subreddit you agree to be considered as the recipient of the prize or as a donator should you not be picked" then I'd say posting on the SR constitutes joining a game rather than soliciting payment.
The issue there is how this then falls foul (or not) of the US Internet Gambling laws.
Suggestion was an RNG was involved in picking the winner - sounds like a game to me. 500 sided die, I wouldn't want to be HMRC trying to prove otherwise. The only tax issue is if you die and you leave it to your kids, it's a fair distance over the IHT threshold.
That said I wouldn't fancy taking that sort of cash over bitcoin because a) where the hell would you exchange such volume and b) the NSA/GCHQ will be all up in your grill. Frankly your bank might freak out due to money laundering regs even if there was a legit balance transfer. Not that they could stop it but they'd totally freak out, possibly involve SIS :p
I think you'll find that in the UK the recipient of a "gift" of money is not liable to pay tax on it.
The giver might need to be careful as there are rules to avoid people "giving away" all their estate before they die to avoid inheritance tax, but as we're taxing about 1USD a time here I don't think that's a problem.
So if the "10p" isn't worth the effort for you I'll take it off your hands.
So he can join all the other annoying dicks on the water? Clueless!
Easy on the jealousy there Meg. He's already suggested some of it will be going to childrens charities. Doubtless if whoever it is that won gave all the money away to charity, you'd still be calling them names if they wrote and sold a book about doing it.
Set up a paypal account, and people are considered to have "entered" only after they've donated. Then turn it over to the winner after chosen. Ideally have a lawyer hold it under escrow legally so you don't have to worry about the guy running the contest legging it with the proceeds.
I'll bet fewer than 10% of people who posted will actually go to the trouble of making the donation after they're a loser.
If I knew about something like this, I'd do it just for the heck of it. I'll drop a buck on a lottery ticket down at the grocery store, so it isn't really any different than that. Even though the prize would be smaller this would be a far better deal because 100% of the buy-in would go towards the prize. Unfortunately in the US this would be taxable income, but that would still leave a lot left over.