comment: >
  
  How did you know the balance of the winners prior to winning?
context: This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.
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  that only applies to some countries... germany, australia, canada and others do not tax price money >
  
  They do in Germany. A host of a German internetshow won 64 thousand € and had to pay taxes on them.
  The law says, that because he had to do something for the money (answering questions) he has to pay taxes on it. 
  At least thats how i recall it. >
  
  It's not that simple. If your win depends on luck it's tax free in Germany. If you have to work for it (like being in Big Brother or DSDS), it's not. For WWM it's not that clear because you have a certain influence on the outcome, but so far no one of the winners had to pay taxes on their prize money. >
  
  And the UK, never taxed on anything considered winnings >
  
  Not even casinos and such? >
  
  Nope, any winnings are yours to keep >
  
  Nice, an actual non-greedy country for once >
  
  Well I’m sure the thinking is, they’ll get it back in taxes eventually anyway, and this way more money is in the economy, it’s smart really >
  
  Great reasoning and everybody wins >
  
  Until you realize there's a 17% VAT on pretty much everything. >
  
  It's better than our 23% VAT on pretty much everything >
  
  Well, I guess 17% or 23% VAT is still better than the 50% tax rate in the US. :thinking: >
  
  To be fair the show is called "Who wants to be a millionaire?" Not "We will make you a millionaire" >
  
  The answer to which is “everyone except billionaires” >
  
  Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Billionaire Edition would be worth a watch >
  
  First contestant: Elon Musk >
  
  2nd contestant: Jeff Bezos
  3rd: JK Rowling >
  
  These people could do so much better for the community >
  
  “Who wants to be a thousandaire” just doesn’t have the same ring to it >
  
  i mean, say $250-300k savings is not outlandish to have especially with the intelligence of some of the people on the show >
  
  Thats called a house. So if you won the show and owned a house your probably a millionaire. Its just owning a million in assets. >
  
  my eng teacher won 10k on a scratcher amd miss girl only got 6.9k >
  
  “6.9k”
  nice >
  
  Except for people who already had enough wealth to still be a millionaire after the taxes from the million dollar prize. So it’s not that unreasonable. >
  
  Just take monstrous losses on your over-valued properties. If you get caught, only your LLC gets in trouble. Free crime! >
  
  I can't tell if you're being serious but while you don't have civil liability criminal liability still applies, you can still get caught and lose a lot. >
  
  David Chang played Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire and won the million dollar question, he was a millionaire before appearing, won, and was still a millionaire so there's at least one.
  Source >
  
  Plus all the people who won Who Wants to be a Millionaire in countries with sensible tax laws where they don't tax the winnings... >
  
  Being a millionaire is not what it once was, anyway.  These days it is more like upper-middle class. >
  
  i’ll still take it >
  
  Not even the upper in some parts of the country. Just regular middle class >
  
  sad.. but i’ll still take it >
  
  Incorrect! They had "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" in Canada where there are no taxes on game winnings, so you could become a millionaire in Canadian dollars!
  It actually turned out to be something like $USD740,000, which is actually something like $USD100,000 more than American contestants get after tax (all amounts are rough estimates, it was a long time ago and I don't remember exactly). >
  
  They also have Who Wants to be a Millionaire in the UK where the price always has been more than a million dollars (sometimes double due to exchange rates and no tax!) >
  
  Outside of America they are. Winnings aren’t earnings - unless you’re a professional gambler - who would they be taxed? >
  
  I feel like there was an OG millionaire special where the show paid taxes for the winners >
  
  In the UK you wouldn't pay tax on winnings, so £1m would be a genuinely £1m in your account >
  
  We can do that too! It’s a little trick I like to call “tax evasion”. >
  
  The title is technically correct. The show is called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, not Who Will Actually Be a Millionaire. The winner continues to want to be a millionaire. >
  
  to be fair,  the show was called “Who WANTS to be a Millionaire?” not “Who WILL Be a Millionaire?” >
  
  No, they could have already been millionaires or they could have had $900,000 in their bank account. The correct way to phrase your point would be "no one on 'who wants to be a millionaire' actually won $1,000,000' unless they live in one of the 185 countries that won't tax your winnings" >
  
  IIRC they paid out enough to make you a millionaire after taxes >
  
  They did a couple specials where they made the winnings big enough to cover taxes and still leave you a millionaire. But outside those specials they certainly didn't. >
  
  I don’t follow that show, but your statement is false if any Canadians won it. Americans have to pay income tax on it, Canadians can keep all of their winnings from game shows. >
  
  Same for the UK.
  If you win £3.8 million in the UK lottery, you keep all £3.8m of it. >
  
  The show should be called, "Who wants to help us deduct taxes?" >
  
  If the man that won already had a few hundred thousands he would be a millionaire >
  
  To be fair the show wasn’t named “We’ll make you a millionaire” >
  
  Funny that the US excessively taxes people who won a million dollars, but millionaires and the ultra wealthy hardly pay tax at all >
  
  Sixhundredthousandaire just doesn’t have the same ring to it. >
  
  Maybe that’s why it’s called “Who WANTS to be a millionaire” not “Who BECOMES a millionaire” >
  
  If my net worth was $500,000 and I won a million dollars, I'd easily be a millionaire even after taxes >
  
  unfortunately nowadays, 500,000$ seems soo important to reach for way too many people.. and where i live in vancouver, 500K only gets you a 400 square feet condo and yet you still gotta pay around 10K a year in fees + another 4-5K a year in taxes >
  
  Oh, I'm not saying it's a lot of money.  I'm just saying that if you have $500,000 and you win $1,000,000 and are taxed $333,000 you still have $1,167,000 and are in fact millionaire. >
  
  Australians dont get taxed on game show or gambling winnings.
  Win $90 Million in the powerball.and you're entitled to $90 million (paid in instalments)
  Sorry America sux. >
  
  Incorrect.
  Winner in UK won a million, gets to keep it all.
  Winner in US already had net worth that exceeded the tax, and therefore became a millionaire.
  Winner was already a millionaire. >
  
  Maybe not, but I won $50,000 on that show and it was still life-changing! >
  
  That’s awesome! What we’re you doing before? How did your life change? >
  
  Before being on the show, we were living paycheck to paycheck. Making it work, but it was a struggle. Hubby had a retail job, I worked from home as a production seamstress. When we got the check from the show, we paid off all our debt before doing anything frivolous. 
  After the show, my work got really busy (one of my clients got a contract with Walmart, which required a minimum order with a quick turn around), and I needed help. Hubby was able to quit his retail job to help me, and while he was off he started learning computer coding. (Actually, he had already been learning for about a year.) So he taught himself to code just from watching YouTube videos, and later got a job with a startup. Much better job and benefits than he had at retail. 
  We each purchased something special with some of the show money. I bought a new sewing machine and a quilting frame, and that led to me finding my next work-from-home client: a much more enjoyable client than the last.  
  When I was invited to be on the show, we maxed our credit cards to make the trip, knowing it was a risk. But even if I completely bombed, the concession prize would have paid for the flight, so we decided it was worth the risk and at least we’d get a cool vacation out of it. >
  
  Stop thinking the world ends as soon you exit the United states. Australia doesn't tax winnings. >
  
  Looks like the answer to the question \Who wants to be a millionaire after taxes?\ is a resounding \Not me!\ >
  
  I feel like you are getting downvoted for crappy formatting more than a crappy thought. I like what you are thinking. >
  
  You’re assuming everyone that goes on that show is broke. 
  If you save even slightly well over 2-3 decades, you will be a millionaire. >
  
  I bet a few were millionaires before they ever even sat down to play. If not, most certainly some contestants had enough money put back that winning the million would put them over 7 figures after taxes. >
  
  Maybe in America with all your "freedom". It's not taxed in most other places I'm aware of. >
  
  So they paid through the teeth in taxes, just like a real millionaire. >
  
  I have an unrelated question. The mod warning says "this is for shower thoughts not thoughts in the shower" is that not what a shower thought is?? >
  
  Is this thought on shower thought not being a shower thought a shower thought? >
  
  Do Americans get to claim tax back on losses that they incur by applying to be on these shows? >
  
  You don't know how much money they had before the show.  The winners at least had a lot of knowledge, which might correlate to financial success.  Also, the winners were people who felt ok risking a large chunk of guaranteed money for more.  I'd guess a decent number of the winners were already millionaires. >
  
  I think it’s ridiculous that shows that had $1 million prizes 23 years ago still only pay out $1 million.