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Tax on National Lottery winnings


Tony

Should National Lottery winners be taxed?  

50 members have voted

  1. 1. Should National Lottery winners be taxed?



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I agree with that, and this coming from someone who has a few quid on it from time to time. If you do tax lottery winnings, is it just the big one or do you tax the tenner as well ? I've won more from a fruit machine on rare occaisions, do I pay on that as well ?

 

What about other lotteries too or any game of chance where there are prizes. Force everybody to do a tax return to declare any prizes won during the year in raffles etc... Why stop at lottery winners?

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The minimum win is £9 ... so that'd be the amount.

 

:)

 

Well it's a serious point. It seems folk have turned on Jessica Ennis because her success allowed her to buy a £1 million house in Dore.

 

So if someone from Gleedless won £10 million on the lottery and moved in next to Jess would they also become a figure of resentment who should be forced to pay tax on their wealth?

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Well it's a serious point. It seems folk have turned on Jessica Ennis because her success allowed her to buy a £1 million house in Dore.

 

So if someone from Gleedless won £10 million on the lottery and moved in next to Jess would they also become a figure of resentment who should be forced to pay tax on their wealth?

 

It might be a serious point, but it's a bit off topic.

 

Tony has asked if lottery winnings should be subject to tax, the human emotion of envy should be irrelevant.

 

As somebody who used to gamble in stocks and shares my winnings were subject to capital gains, and any losses could be offset against those gains. Why should lottery winnings be treated differently?

 

I should add that any share winnings, much as I might have liked to have deluded myself otherwise at the time, were just as random as any lottery, blackjack or betting shop winnings.

 

In fact, you can now bet on movements in share prices, rather than buy/sell the shares directly and escape capital gains tax. Why is that right? Well HMRC have judged that it isn't, over a certain amount, and will tax your gains if you trade frequently.

 

For some reason frequent lottery ticket buyers, frequent casino gamblers, and frequent sports gamblers are immune from tax on their winnings in a way that frequent financial market gamblers are not.

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It might be a serious point, but it's a bit off topic.

 

Tony has asked if lottery winnings should be subject to tax, the human emotion of envy should be irrelevant.

 

As somebody who used to gamble in stocks and shares my winnings were subject to capital gains, and any losses could be offset against those gains. Why should lottery winnings be treated differently?

 

I should add that any share winnings, much as I might have liked to have deluded myself otherwise at the time, were just as random as any lottery, blackjack or betting shop winnings.

 

In fact, you can now bet on movements in share prices, rather than buy/sell the shares directly and escape capital gains tax. Why is that right? Well HMRC have judged that it isn't, over a certain amount, and will tax your gains if you trade frequently.

 

For some reason frequent lottery ticket buyers, frequent casino gamblers, and frequent sports gamblers are immune from tax on their winnings in a way that frequent financial market gamblers are not.

 

The last bit. I'm not sure you can even begin to compare proffessional card players (it's often the same winners so it's not all luck) and qualified stock brokers to those who pick a few lines of numbers and buy a few scratch cards.

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The last bit. I'm not sure you can even begin to compare proffessional card players (it's often the same winners so it's not all luck) and qualified stock brokers to those who pick a few lines of numbers and buy a few scratch cards.

 

I (think, not sure) the point quin was making was those of us who were taxed on gambling on stocks and shares also got to offset our losses. Back in the dot com boom day I made silly amounts of money trading shares, I had to pay CGT on that but any of the "misses" that became worthless got offset against the profits. If we want to put the lotto punter in with the share trader in terms of tax then they have to have their non-winning losses offset against tax, which would blow the business model out of the water.

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As somebody who used to gamble in stocks and shares my winnings were subject to capital gains, and any losses could be offset against those gains.

 

How does this work, If I back a loser in the 2.20 at Taunton tomorrow how can I offset my loss against my gains?

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How does this work, If I back a loser in the 2.20 at Taunton tomorrow how can I offset my loss against my gains?

 

Exactly the same as if I back a share to go up on Monday and it goes down, I can offset the loss against any gains.

 

I've no doubt that there are professional gamblers right now, who make money from horse racing, and have been judged as "professional" by the HMRC and pay taxes on their winnings. They will be offsetting their losses against their gains if they are organised and sensible.

 

You won't pay tax on your winner in the 3.15 at Ludlow, so you've no need to offset your loss in the 2.30 at Taunton.

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