Fa Piao

Somebody earlier today posted about how the Chinese government is introducing receipts with “little scratching games” in a move to pressure restaurants to give customers their fa piao (and pay their taxes). I can’t find the post and I wanted to write it up. (Can’t remember if it was on Living in China or a blog.) If you are the writer, or if someone you know is the writer and you can point me to him/her, please let me know. Thanks.

The Discussion: 4 Comments

I didn’t see the blog entry, but I can help with a bit of background. The lottery scratch card fapiao system has been going in Beijing for at least two years, if I remember rightly. The idea is to encourage people to demand a fapiao (official receipt) when they pay for anything, because every time a business issues a fapiao, it pays a percentage of the amount on the fapiao in tax. The scratch card thing also adds an additional complication into printing the fapiao, so it is more difficult and costly to make fake fapiao.

I have been scratching the scratch card fapiao ever since they were introduced, and haven’t yet won a cent. A friend of mine has a friend (or was it that friend’s friend’s friend?) who won a few thousand RMB from a scratch card fapiao.

December 1, 2003 @ 8:59 pm | Comment

Thanks. I used to see those scratch things all the time and I never knew what they were. Who knows, maybe if I had known to scratch it I’d be a millionairre today.

The fa piao was often the bane of my existence in Beijing. I’ll elaborate in a separate post when I get a chance.

December 1, 2003 @ 9:06 pm | Comment

I blogged about it a few days ago, though I never won anything by them =) that would probably be were you read from it …

Why were they the bane of you ?

December 1, 2003 @ 9:43 pm | Comment

Thank you for the info!

September 16, 2005 @ 6:54 am | Comment

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