Companies do it, so why not.

Where I live, we do have the option to register a longer tax form for this. It’s mostly used by farmers who are not really businesses, but also not salaried. Most of their income comes from “secondary income”, such as sales. It gives private persons the option to deduct expenses from their secondary income and to postpone the taxes over 3 years, so they can utilize losses from one year in the next or hold back some taxable income for potential future losses. Just like businesses, except businesses can postpone taxes for more years and have more deductible costs.

Specifically for lottery winnings, these are “tax free”, so it doesn’t fuck people’s regular income statements. The lottery instead pays a tax based on all their payouts, so the tax man still gets his share, but it makes no difference to the individual winners. Much easier to handle for everyone. You win a million, you get a million. That it cost the lottery 1.2 million to pay out is irrelevant for the players.

Red, swollen and tasteless. Few bruises, up for grabs.