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Apple Launches '10 Billion App Countdown' Contest

"why can't they say hears the treasure spend it wisely" -Riley pool (national treasure)

Haha but what happened if u won and u were like no I don't want it it's too much taxes do they pick a new winner. And at least last tine it was a gift card and a MacBook pro.
 
Benjy91 said:
I don't see a prize as income, income is something you go out and earn, and the tax for this is reflected on how much you earn and your financial standing, winning a prize is pure luck, and having to pay a potentially crippling tax on it because you are not in good enough standing to pay for it is ridiculous.

The prize could be something you'd never be able to afford with your current standing, the only tax here I can think of that is that ridiculous is inheritance tax.
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ops my bad, wrong post to quote
 
tigress666 said:
The problem is, even if you get a gift card, who is going to buy it? Who needs that much in itunes?

If the tax is 2k, you may be able to sell it for that (I've always been told tax on a prize ends up equalling about half the prize value which I think even finding a buyer who thinks they'll spend 5k in itunes would be hard). Certainly even if the tax is around 2k like some one quoted on this thread, you are probably only going to be able to sell it for enough to cover your tax. Who really gets the benefit is the person who bought it from you.
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I didn't say iTunes gift card. I was talking about an Apple Store Gift card
 
Benjy91 said:
I don't see a prize as income, income is something you go out and earn, and the tax for this is reflected on how much you earn and your financial standing, winning a prize is pure luck, and having to pay a potentially crippling tax on it because you are not in good enough standing to pay for it is ridiculous.
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Doesn't matter if it's "ridiculous". Its law. You pay tax when you win the lottery. You pay tax when Oprah surprises you with weekend spa trip. That's just how it goes.
 
That is a lot of itunes

Seriously. I have about 250 apps. I do not need anymore. What I would be happy with, is a $2,000 Apple Store Gift card. I need me a new Imac. my 2008 macbook hard-drive is full. Plus I need quad-core and 8gb ram to run a windows vm (some of my church apps are not on mac yet), and also do heavy video editing.

core duo,2gb ram,250gb hard drive just don't cut it anymore...

If anyone has figured out a way to get time machine to recognize an external drive when backing up - inbox me. I would love to move some of my stuff to an external drive (like my 100 gb itunes library [music, podcasts, ItunesU, ipad, and two iphone managements]). I don't have a direct need for that to be on my main hard-drive - but I need time machine to be able to back it up.
 
Some really rough maths tells me that this is going to finish in about 7.81 days if someone the counter is correct and the overall app download rate doesn't change.
 
I'm tracking the stats again.

Let me know if you see any anomalies, I quickly threw this together from the files I used last year.
 
dstankus said:
Probably helped by the fact that there are many free, quality apps to download from the app store, while just about everything on iTunes has some cost.
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Plus, music downloads are not available in all the countries, mine for instance, while I can access and buy the apps from the app store.
 
Benjy91 said:
I don't see a prize as income, income is something you go out and earn, and the tax for this is reflected on how much you earn and your financial standing, winning a prize is pure luck, and having to pay a potentially crippling tax on it because you are not in good enough standing to pay for it is ridiculous.
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By definition of the word, "income" is money that you receive, not earn. I guess you simply don't understand the concept that the govt wants 30-40%, not all of it, not over 100%. No matter what you win, you can now afford to pass on 40% of it. (the state govt will also get a cut if they charge income tax, bringing the total near to 50%) I'm not saying I like the tax or am eager to pay taxes, but winning a big cash prize is not going to cripple your finances, quite the opposite. This is just basic math, here.
tigress666 said:
That being said, the government needs to require companies to take out the money from the prize (if it is a tangible thing require they offer a cash equivelant - the tax or even if it is a gift card take out the tax from the amount of the gift card). Because otherwise some one could get awarded something they can't afford the tax on and it's not always so easy to sell the prize to get the tax (a car yes, a gift card like this? Who needs that much itunes enough to pay for that all upfront?).
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You should try reading my post above. That is exactly what they do. They want the money now.

The more I think about it, the more I would expect that Apple simply credits your account for the after-tax amount. Or, you could ask that they do it this way.
 
The cash equivalent of gift cards are always 1/20th of a cent, I thought? Doesn't that mean the tax is non existent since the government doesn't bother taxing you for things worth less than 50 cents?
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
The cash equivalent of gift cards are always 1/20th of a cent, I thought? Doesn't that mean the tax is non existent since the government doesn't bother taxing you for things worth less than 50 cents?
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That's coupons.
 
Apple's super successful self serving marketing, is far superior to any of their products.

Jobs deserves an award as the worlds best huckster. He can sell anything to the masses in huge quantities.

This "contest" is a prime example.

If the iPhone was as great as Jobs sales expertise Apple would really have a world class smartphone.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
The cash equivalent of gift cards are always 1/20th of a cent, I thought? Doesn't that mean the tax is non existent since the government doesn't bother taxing you for things worth less than 50 cents?
Click to expand...

It's a digital world, a cash card is really like a bank account. The IRS is smart enough to know that there is a cash balance somewhere and tax that. Not the piece of paper or plastic, which is essentially worthless in itself.

Aatos.1 said:
Apple's super successful self serving marketing, is far superior to any of their products.

Jobs deserves an award as the worlds best huckster. He can sell anything to the masses in huge quantities.

This "contest" is a prime example.

If the iPhone was as great as Jobs sales expertise Apple would really have a world class smartphone.
Click to expand...
Clearly, you are smarter than the rest of the world. Good for you! :rolleyes:
 
pmjoe said:
Can you buy hardware with an iTunes gift card? I've never spent $1 in the iTunes Store, let alone $10,000. I might come up with a few apps I might buy, but never anywhere near $10,000.

As some others have mentioned, I'd hate to get stuck paying taxes on this "prize", as I don't see much value in it.
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Yeah I dont quite understand how this is really a "prize". I would be pissed if I was stuck with that burden. I assume you can decline the prize if you are notified of winning.
 
"the winner is solely responsible for all applicable taxes, fees and surcharges associated with prize receipt and/or use."

that would kind of suck though. a few thousand dollars in taxes.

"prize is nontransferable, unless otherwise specifically approved by Sponsor in writing."

you can't legally sell it without written permission from Apple.

So you can either pay a few thousand dollars in taxes or give up the prize.
 
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Apple is sitting on billion$ of dollars in cash, no dividends or stock splits to the shareholders who've helped make it possible, and all they can do is offer a stinkin' gift card??!
 
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