[Noah930]

Not that I have anything to worry about, but just curious. HGTV gives away a few homes each year. Right now they have a sweepstakes for a condo in Boston, for example, which got me thinking. Supposedly it's worth $1 mil. Yowza.

So for the person lucky enough to win something like this, what tax do they have to pay (up front) to collect their winnings? Is the winner effectively taxed for $1 mil in income? So they'd owe the federal and state governments about $450K in taxes in order to collect the keys to the place? How many people could cover a tab like that? I guess I can see why most would prefer a cash option to actually taking possession of said gift.

And then there are the annual property tax bill and monthly condo/bldg maintenance fees for this particular property that would likely run another $30-40K annually. Would be cool to have a little pad in the city, but yikes!