Oprah Winfrey is famous for giving things away. On September 14, 2004, she had a surprise for her entire audience. Each member of the audience found a box under their chair and they were told that if a key was inside of it, then they won a Pontiac G6 sedan worth $30,000. Each and every audience member had a key in their box. All 276 audience members received a G6 Sedan. They all went crazy with excitement. The end of the story is a little unknown, though.
Each audience member had to fork of $7,000 in taxes or forfeit the car. Oprah didn’t shell out a dime for the $7 million worth of gifts, either. General Motors took care of the whole thing.
This is a standard problem with major gift giving on TV shows. It is rarely ever brought to light, however, and most people do end up forfeiting their gifts, because they can’t pay the taxes on it.