[jpalley]

In theory that's how it works - but it over-looks a price optimization that everyone uses. Essentially, when I walk into a restaurant/business to buy something, I'm in one of two situations:

a) I have some relationship with my employer whereby I need fapiaos to essentially reduce my income tax (i.e. count my personal expenditures as business expenses). Thus, I will ask for a fapiao.

b) I don't need a fapiao to write off income tax. Now, we play a simple numbers game: Say there is a 10% chance of me winning some small percent of money by receiving the fapiao. But there is a 100% chance that if I ask for the fapiao the business will need to pay tax. So, we strike a win-win deal. The business gives me a discount, that is, say, 50% of what the tax is. I pay less. They make more. Everyone but the government wins.

Other notes:

a) The lottery on fapiao has been around for a while. Its not new.

b) The above deal is less and less common in big cities as more people use UnionPay (debit cards) and businesses essentially assume that people will ask for fapiao.

c) There are a few factual errors in the article. Some restaurants, yes, provide a "stack" of pre-printed fapiaos. Most have a printer that is essentially connected to the tax collection offices computer and can print at the bill's value.

[seanmcdirmid]

As for (c), it depends on the city and even restaurant. Many places can't afford fapiao printing machines, and so the government is more lax and lets them use preprinted anonymous fapiaos. These are being phased out, but if you leave the big cities you'll still see a lot of that, and even in Beijing we get fapiao tickets at some lower end places.