Let's say you just won the lottery (in the US). What is the smartest way to give money to your friends?
I don't know why stuff like this keeps me up at night but let's pretend you just won some obscene amount and there's a lot of people you'd like to set up for life. Let's say after taxes you have $300m in your account
You can give someone up to 18k a year without incurring a gift tax and while that'd definitely be a nice bump to their income, you still have way more money than you know what to do with. So what's the smartest way to hook them up?
A couple of options I've considered are:
Give them a lump sum of $X million. They eat the taxes the first year and handle the savings themselves.
Create a company and hire them to "work" one hour a month for a big salary. If you put $25m in an account, the interest covers the salary. They get a steady bonus income with the added bonus of getting the best insurance available. Is that legal?
Set up a "shared" checking account they can use to pay for...whatever. But would these expenses count towards the gift tax? I do not know.
Buy houses and let them live there rent-free. I don't really like this one because I don't want to be a lord to my friends and family.
For the record, I did not win the lottery. I don't even play it. I'm just working out the details in a fantasy world for some reason
I say to hell with the older folks, the math doesn’t check out.
Gift the 18k to each new baby born in the family, have it invested into a large growth fund. Another option would be to have the baby on payroll and make sure ROTH is maxed out.
18k invested for 60 years with a compounding interest rate of roughly 12.4% goes a long way. That’s just a one time payment.