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Comment by zepearl | Hacker News Reader

Is it true that in Portugal when you issue a receipt as a shop (e.g. when some person buys something and you issue a receipt for the client) the client gets automatically a number for a national lottery from the machine which is directly connected to some central government's lottery & tax department (kind of controversial, hehe)?

A portuguese colleague told me a few years ago that this was one of the measures taken by the government to lower tax evasion (and I thought "cool, why not") but I don't really know if that's true nor if it's still used nowadays.

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It is true. The prize used to be a car, now it is government bonds.

It is fully automatic. You just tell the cashier your tax id number, and you are set. No need to keep the receipt.

Thx!!!

Yes, I now remember my colleague mentioning a car :)

But well, I wouldn't have enough faith in XXX cashiers. I'd want a hard receipt (confirmation of submission on paper with some kind of checksum which I could confirm online if I wanted to).

You do get a paper receipt, which is just your normal sales receipt (which usually I just throw away immediately).

You can also check all your receipts online, on the Finance Ministry website.

Screw the car. I want my receipts downloadable!

Portugal is moving to digital receipts for individuals in 2019. If you give the cashier your VAT ID, no paper receipt is produced, and you may download the receipt from your IRS dashboard.

Anonymous paper receipts will remain valid, indefinitely (i.e. they are not being phased out).

Sounds perfect.

So you have a centralized database that tracks all purchases country-wide? Maybe Portugal government could compete with Google/FB providing personalized ads...

I'm confused, what is the purpose of the automatic lottery ticket tied to a sales receipt?

I've spent time in Portugal and was never asked if I would like to participate. Is it only certain types of store or receipts?

To combat tax evasion/parallel economy. The rationale goes: People want to get deductions and maybe even win a car, so they demand a receipt from business. That means said business can't keep that transaction off the books.

"Is it only certain types of store or receipts?"

Every business.

Don’t know about Portugal, but I saw this system in Taiwan about 10 years ago. Apparently the effect was quite good.

It works in curbing tax evasion, but the cost is a huge waste of time (and productivity), as the seller needs to ask for and input the numerical ids of the buyers. If there's a dinner with 10 people you can expect the restaurant employee to spend 5 minutes or more dividing items of the bill amongst the 10 persons and enter each id one by one.

Plus now the government knows every purchase you make and likely where you were then. Despite privacy controls being now better in the IRS (every access is audited after some VIPs had their information constantly accessed and leaked), IMO it's only a matter of time till this information starts being used for other purposes.

>"It works in curbing tax evasion,..."

How does it curb tax evasion? Is the idea that if a customer requests the lottery entrance that the sale will be reported? Do most people opt for the lottery ticket in practice then?

Exactly, that's the idea. Most people do in fact request an invoice, except for very small purchases (like an expresso). In some areas where tax evasion is still rampant (like construction), they won't ask for an invoice because the contractor will give them a VAT-free price. On their side, the advantage is that they won't need to report the amount as income.

In addition to the lottery, there are also tax rebates for people who ask for invoices. For restaurants, I think it's like 20% of the VAT of the purchase, towards a limit of 250 EUR/year. Other industries where tax evasion is endemic (hairdressers, auto repair, etc.) have separate rebates and limits. I think this is the reason, more than the lottery, that makes people ask for invoices.

That's interesting. I thought the system was way more "low-tech", ie that the phyisical, printed receipt worked as a lottery ticket, and whoever holds it may be the winner.

I'm saddened to hear that it actually sounds like centralized, authenticated registration of all purchases.

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