Not high at all. It's called "Gift Tax" and it's paid on any winnings of prizes or sweepstakes.
It's Canadian law. There is always a "skill testing question". Generally, something like "2+2=". Not really a big deal.I found this rule for the contest to be a bit puzzeling....
"Each Canadian resident who is a potential winner will be required to answer correctly a mathematical skill testing question without assistance of any kind whether mechanical or otherwise to be declared a winner and be eligible to collect a prize."
What gives with that? We let stupid Americans do anything they want.
I was thinking the exact same thing!
Sweeps run by Disney are not scams. There are some people right here on the DIS who have won trips to WDW in the past. I've read their stories here and no scam involved. I'm looking forward to sharing my story with you all one day.
A gift tax is something different. A sweepstakes win is looked at as income. So it is just added to your income and will be taxed at whatever bracket you are in or the winning bumps you up to. Being military a lot of our income is not taxable plus we are residents of states that either have no income tax or don't charge military income tax. So for me I don't think it would be 33%. For those in higher tax brackets it would be.
A brief article about the Canadian skill test requirement for sweepstakes: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/01/72511.
Thank you so much mesaboy2 for pointing out my egregious spelling error that apparently needed to be pointed out by you. I was totally unaware that spelling errors on a web forum and stupidity are as synonymous as you have inferred them to be. This was not covered during my engineering or my MBA studies. Nonetheless, Im happy for you that your days and nights will be filled with eradicating the web of spelling errors one poster at a time. Good for you!
I actually think he implied it as opposed to inferring it.
Call me stupid, along with maybe a few others, and expect some return fire. You could have made your only point without the wide-angle insulting generalization. Simple enough, eh?
Feel free to laugh at the fact that we have to do a bit of math. We'll laugh while you pay 33% of any winnings (contest winnings are not taxed in Canada).
I wonder who this reincarnated DISer is now......
Hey look, there's another stupid American! Bet he done win no prize eider.....eye sea tht thiss thred is gedding weigh owt of hand.........
it wuz suppozed tooo bee funnnn..
ho well
Also, I was reading a few days back that few sweepstakes winners realize that you can decline portions of the prizes. I am not saying that is the case for sure in this Disney sweepstakes but it may be. That way one could elect to keep the portions of the prize that they desire (for me, the hotel and park tickets, and maybe airfare if I went to DL) and decline others (I might decline the $500 if it could not be applied to food because I don't want a spa treatment, tour or a lot of "stuff". I might prefer to drive myself and the girls to WDW even though it's more than 250 miles because the cost for me to drive is still probably less than the taxes would be on the flights etc.
It would go by your effective tax rate, because the IRS classes prizes as income. But that's a far cry from 33% for most... we're in the 25% bracket but our real effective rate seldom breaks into double digits because of how progressive rates and deductions work. So for us it would be more like $600 in taxes.
