June 21, 2024
North Carolina Woman Still Walks Away With $500K After Uncle Sam Collected His Share From Her Big Lottery Win
Donna Smith, from Charlotte North Carolina, is now a couple hundred thousand dollars richer after leaning into her intuition after feeling the urge to purchase a lottery scratch-off ticket.
Donna Smith has always loved playing the lottery, and a recent trip to the convenience store left her blessed by Lady Luck’s grace, and it was all because she trusted her intuition.
After a trip to the Run-In store in her Huntersville neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina, left Smith wanting to purchase a scratch-off ticket for $10, she soon learned she had won $700,000 from playing the Triple 777 game. In this case, a small dollar went a long way, and she still relishes that she won such a large amount after years of trying her luck with the lottery.
“I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” said Smith during an interview with the N.C. Education Lottery. “I had to calm myself down.” On Wednesday (June 19), officials revealed that Smith “could barely contain her excitement” when she realized that listening to her gut had paid off.
“This was just what my mind told me to buy,” she expressed.
Despite winning the prize worth $700,000 after taxes, Smith only walked away with $500,503, which she notes is still more than enough to allow her to fulfill her dreams of paying off her house and car as well as being a blessing to others.
While a person may be celebrating learning that they’ve won the lottery, so is Uncle Sam. A 2024 Turbo Tax reports that lottery agencies usually must withhold roughly 24% of the winners’ jackpot if the amount exceeds $5,000 in taxes.
Additionally, if hitting the jackpot places you in a higher tax bracket, the winner is responsible for the difference between the withholding amount and their total tax.
Now that her taxes are out and she’s walked away with the big bucks, Smith plans to take care of her own expenses while sharing her winnings with her family and church.
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