I keep thinking that I've written about this here before, but oh well. The picture above is of six dollars, or rather a receipt that is worth six dollars. The Taiwan government came up with a brilliant plan to get restaurants and shops to pay sales tax. They decided to make all receipts have a lottery number on them.
The way this works is that when you buy something and it is officially recorded, it is printed out on a receipt with a number. Every two months the is a drawing where you can win anywhere from six bucks to 300,000 dollars, depending on how many correct numbers you have.
The idea being that this would cause customers to demand an official receipt, thus causing the store to record the transaction and pay the correct sales tax. For the most part places give out receipts, but small local restaurants and shops do not. The idea being if they don't charge sales tax than they can keep the price down, but really it's just to make a bit more profit.
To be honest it's hard to know what sales tax there is, because every price in the country comes with sales tax already included in the price. However for more expensive items like electronic goods, you can bargain to get it cheaper if you choose not to get a receipt. You get a cheaper price, they get to sell the thing off the books, but you miss out on 1 in a billion chance to win some money.
Actually the odds are not bad. I probably win the lowest amount of six bucks about twice a year. The most I've ever won at a time was 12 dollars. But I do know some people who win fairly often and they win the larger amounts, like 30 dollars. Then again the more you buy, the more receipts you get. Perhaps that's another great idea by the government to get people to buy more things, as it increases your chance to win the receipt lottery.
The picture above is of a winning receipt I had. It was for, you guessed it, six dollars. I think right after i cashed it in at the post office (where you go to get the money) I walked down the street to the pet store to buy some stuff for my dog. Speaking of which just last night I ran out of the treats I got her. She better hope I win the lottery again some time soon!
