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Income taxes are assessed once a year. The IRS doesn't randomly collect taxes throughout the year for lottery winnings or other prizes.
As far as some of the people not being able to pay the tax, which will vary based on their situation, they've got a few options. They can always give the car back if they can't appreciate the gift and don't want to be bothered with Uncle Sam. They can sell the car and get an affordable car in order to pay the tax. The reports say the highest amount of tax is $7K. Depending on what they buy and how much money they have left over, they may not be taxed the $7k and will have plenty of change left over which IMO is a better deal. It'll still be a free car and they have until April 15th to work that out.
Most likely GM will claim this as a marketing expense since Oprah was the go between. If they were given a 1099 for the value of the car, I'm sure the other tax consequences were thought of also. Oprah may have gifted them an amount to cover the tax since she really didn't give them the cars.
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