In 2004, Oprah Winfrey gave her audience of 276 each a new Pontiac G-6 Sedan. It came out of the advertising budget for the G-6, meant as a replacement for the Pontiac Grand Am. Good deal, right?However, many people in the audience, who Winfrey specifically selected as they were in desperate need of a car, turned it down, opting instead to sell the $28,500 "gift". This phenomena isn't uncommon. Many shows such as "The Price Is Right" or "Jeopardy" oftentimes see contestants win a car, take a picture, then immediately sell the car. The reason? Taxes.
Even with Pontiac offering to pay the licensing and state taxes for their cars, contestants still had to pay around $7,000 in Federal taxes and registration if they wanted to keep their cars. Considering that many of the audience members were "in desperate need of a car", most didn't have the spare $7,000 in their bank accounts. Even if they did sell the car, they would still end up $20,000 ahead.
Normally, the donee is responsible for paying the "gift tax" (only if you give away more than $15,000 in a year). However, Oprah's cars aren't "gifts" in the eyes of the IRS, instead they are considered "prizes" as the audience members essentially "won" a car. Some shows managed to get around this issue by including enough cash in the car or alongside the prize to cover the tax(for both the car and the cash). Oprah herself learned from her mistakes, and when she gave her audience members an all expenses paid trip to Australia, she included taxes as well as a CPA to avoid repeating the issue.
While this advertising stunt did prove successful, leading to the promotion making its way onto the Top 25 Oprah's show moments, Pontiac as a whole did not. The branch of General Motors was discontinued only 4 short years later.
All this goes to show that there really is no such thing as a free lunch, car, or trip to Australia.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/09/13/a-look-back-at-oprahs-ultimate-car-giveaway/#322b7ae360ff
https://mynorthwest.com/24363/tacoma-woman-wins-biggest-price-is-right-prize-but-faces-huge-tax-bill/?
I think this was a really interesting read, and reminded me of a reddit post I saw a while ago about why it's bad to win the lottery. It basically described all the hassles that lottery winners had to go through, and one of the biggest was the taxes and payments they had to make in order to access their winnings. These taxes commonly exceed 1/3 of the entire share of winnings, and while the net gain is still positive, it's much lower than advertised.
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