Wealth of Ideas

So you have won nearly $17 million in the lottery.

But after you have quaffed the champagne, joshed with the reporters, changed your phone number and turned away the wild-eyed inventor who can mine kidney beans for platinum, what do you do?

In addition to receiving a pile of cash, Yolanda Starr will be subjected to an avalanche of advice.

The Ventura woman is one of three winners of Wednesday’s $104-million jackpot. She is the first to acknowledge that she doesn’t need the extra loot--she lives in a house with its own dock--but anyone who waltzes home from Vons with the gross national product of a banana republic can use a few tips on being successfully rich. Besides--the advice is free.

Counseling moderation, Russ Charvonia, a financial planner with the Renaissance Group in Ventura, dusted off a financial planning adage: “Bulls make money and bears make money, but pigs wind up in the slaughterhouse.”

“There’s no reason for these people to be pigs,” he said. “They should steer clear of anything speculative because there’s no need for them to take any risks with their money.”

His formula for steady, if modest, investment results: a diversified portfolio of conservative mutual funds, plus some real estate to serve as a hedge against inflation.

And the smart money seeks out charity, Charvonia notes, adding that the tax laws can do marvelous things for a community and for a civic-minded donor.

That might sound about as exciting as vanilla pudding, but lottery winners face dramatic financial threats.

“The death tax can absolutely kill you,” said Steve Feder, a Ventura estate-planning attorney.

If a lottery winner and spouse die, their heirs can face taxes as high as 55%--payable within nine months. That is one of the terrific arguments for taking a lump sum instead of receiving twice as much money over 26 years, Feder said.

Another is the ease of topping the 26-year payout with prudent investments of the one-time sum, he added.

In any event, the Starrs should be aware of the death-tax anvil swinging over the heads of their loved ones. But Feder said its fall can be cushioned, reducing or eliminating the huge tax.

“You can make gifts of $10,000 to anyone and everyone you want to,” he said. Parents each can earmark $625,000 for their children without tax consequences.

One essential investment for children of big winners would be monumental life insurance policies on their millionaire parents, Feder said; the premiums will be high but the payoff immense--and tax-free.

Of course, not all of the advice directed toward Starr will revolve around matters as mundane as tax rates and insurance policies.

“She should just float for a while,” said Madam Joanne, who reads palms for $25 and cards for $50 at her offices in Port Hueneme and Agoura Hills.

“I would tell her to not allow the money to make any difference in her life right now,” Joanne said. “She was chosen to do something beautiful with it, something special, somewhere down the line.”

Shirley Zeitzmann would buy that. The $2 million that she and her husband, Zeke, won six years ago has changed their lives hardly at all.

They still live in their modest one-story house in Port Hueneme--the one they have lived in for 28 years.

They are helping the grandkids through college but they have skirted the typical dream of wanna-be lottery winners. The Zeitzmanns moved 17 times during Zeke’s naval career and have no yen for parts unknown.

He makes oak clocks and gives them to charities--just as he did before the windfall.

As for Starr, Shirley is down to earth and to the point.

“I don’t give advice,” she said. “Just enjoy it.”

* MAIN STORY: A1