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swirlie · 31-35, F
When I was 6 months old, my mother entered me in a local baby contest... and I won 1st Prize 🥇...which has always been an embarrassment for me anytime someone in our family brings it up... and no, I wasn't inspired to take up professional Modeling as a result of my first and only win, not counting the few I won in university pubs judged by many men who were very drunk.
Then when I was 21, my sisters and I drove across the Canada/US border crossing at Detroit Michigan to do a day of shopping like most Canadians use to do who lived near the border who all thought that grass was greener on the other side of the border.
While we were gassing up our car with cheap gas at the 7-11 gas bar, I ran inside to buy some cheap milk to take home with us in an ice chest we had in the car's trunk. While I was paying for the milk, the girl being the counter asked me if I wanted to buy a PowerBall ticket?
I didn't know what PowerBall was, so she explained to me that it was like a scratch-and-win lottery that's held across the USA all the time, so I said okay and bought a ticket. If I won however, it would mean coming back across the border to claim my prize. So I paid cash for the ticket and never even knew what I was buying or how much the PowerBall prize was at the time.
Arriving back in Canada that same day, I put the ticket on a cork pin board in my mom's kitchen to remind someone to watch the PowerBall results in the USA to see if we won. Turns out, my mom made it her business to check my ticket and when I got the phone call from her a week later, I had to sit down on the floor before I fell down. Turns out, I won $800,000 USD in PowerBall.
When we made the 20 minute drive back across the border to Detroit to claim the prize, the first thing the lottery people told me was that the US government charges 50% tax on all lottery winnings made by US Citizens.
I then informed the lottery people that I was not an American citizen and that I was a Canadian citizen visiting the USA for the day.
Under those circumstances then, the US government cannot tax Canadians for American lottery winnings, so they had no choice but to cut me a check for the entire $800Gs tax-free.
I took the check back across the border after a Wells Fargo truck delivered the check itself to the border crossing, then presented it to me after confirming my identification. I then threw the check in the glove box of my car and drove straight to the bank and deposited the whole thing tax-free into my savings account at the bank in Windsor Ontario Canada, which is located on the Canadian side of the Detroit River.
It was a pretty good score considering I don't normally buy lottery tickets and I never even knew what PowerBall was, but then won on my first ticket! 😄
Then when I was 21, my sisters and I drove across the Canada/US border crossing at Detroit Michigan to do a day of shopping like most Canadians use to do who lived near the border who all thought that grass was greener on the other side of the border.
While we were gassing up our car with cheap gas at the 7-11 gas bar, I ran inside to buy some cheap milk to take home with us in an ice chest we had in the car's trunk. While I was paying for the milk, the girl being the counter asked me if I wanted to buy a PowerBall ticket?
I didn't know what PowerBall was, so she explained to me that it was like a scratch-and-win lottery that's held across the USA all the time, so I said okay and bought a ticket. If I won however, it would mean coming back across the border to claim my prize. So I paid cash for the ticket and never even knew what I was buying or how much the PowerBall prize was at the time.
Arriving back in Canada that same day, I put the ticket on a cork pin board in my mom's kitchen to remind someone to watch the PowerBall results in the USA to see if we won. Turns out, my mom made it her business to check my ticket and when I got the phone call from her a week later, I had to sit down on the floor before I fell down. Turns out, I won $800,000 USD in PowerBall.
When we made the 20 minute drive back across the border to Detroit to claim the prize, the first thing the lottery people told me was that the US government charges 50% tax on all lottery winnings made by US Citizens.
I then informed the lottery people that I was not an American citizen and that I was a Canadian citizen visiting the USA for the day.
Under those circumstances then, the US government cannot tax Canadians for American lottery winnings, so they had no choice but to cut me a check for the entire $800Gs tax-free.
I took the check back across the border after a Wells Fargo truck delivered the check itself to the border crossing, then presented it to me after confirming my identification. I then threw the check in the glove box of my car and drove straight to the bank and deposited the whole thing tax-free into my savings account at the bank in Windsor Ontario Canada, which is located on the Canadian side of the Detroit River.
It was a pretty good score considering I don't normally buy lottery tickets and I never even knew what PowerBall was, but then won on my first ticket! 😄