Taiwan Lottery
I noticed that all the receipts I got at the market or any store looked the same. A thin white paper strip with a red circle at the top. I asked about the receipts and was told every receipt is a lottery ticket because the government wants to encourage people to play the lottery. That's interesting, but the reason didn't make sense. Sure, governments make money off the lottery because people pay for the tickets. If you give them out for free, who pays? Something didn't add up but as a consumer what could be better than having an opportunity to win money every time I buy something? I also pondered the fact that every business issued a similar receipt but didn't realize what a significant role that fact played in this puzzle. In spite of my tendency to overthink things, this time, I wouldn't fight it. If receipts are lotto tickets, so be it. Just one more thing for me to blog about.
Fast forward several months later. Here I am backdating blog posts and I decide this post will be more complete if I can dig up some background info. When I need info, I wiki it. Wiki's got good info. But Google finds it. So in order to wiki something, I google wiki. Say what? What does it mean to google wiki? It means I include "wiki" as part of my search query on Google. In this case, I google "taiwan lottery wiki". Couldn't I go to wiki and type "taiwan lottery"? What if there's not a wiki for that exact phrase? Or what if Google is my homepage and I don't want to type any more than I have to? Google finds the most relevant wiki. So the next time someone tells you something you know is total baloney, you say "woah, woah, woah, you're totally wrong there buddy, and I'll prove it just as soon as I can google wiki." (editorial note - Google's official policy is that they prefer people not use the verb "google", but rather "search on Google" or "perform a Google search". Well, that's not going to happen, so in the meantime, to disambiguate them, I capitalize the proper noun Google, and lowercase the verb google. Whether or not "wiki" is a proper noun or verb is an equally important topic, but is beyond the scope of this post. Even I can only digress so much.)
Back to the lotto tickets. The Google search leads me to a wiki on uniform invoices. "Uniform invoices" comes up when I search for "taiwan lottery"? ¿Que? It seems odd, but then the answer becomes clear. The Taiwan government requires all merchants to use the same receipts to standardize their sales tax collection. And what better way to make sure that a transaction is reported than by giving the customer an incentive to demand the standard receipt. Make it a lotto ticket!! Freakin genius! So often, the tax avoider is more creative than the tax collector. Round of applause, Taiwan, you are a formidable foe.
Fast forward several months later. Here I am backdating blog posts and I decide this post will be more complete if I can dig up some background info. When I need info, I wiki it. Wiki's got good info. But Google finds it. So in order to wiki something, I google wiki. Say what? What does it mean to google wiki? It means I include "wiki" as part of my search query on Google. In this case, I google "taiwan lottery wiki". Couldn't I go to wiki and type "taiwan lottery"? What if there's not a wiki for that exact phrase? Or what if Google is my homepage and I don't want to type any more than I have to? Google finds the most relevant wiki. So the next time someone tells you something you know is total baloney, you say "woah, woah, woah, you're totally wrong there buddy, and I'll prove it just as soon as I can google wiki." (editorial note - Google's official policy is that they prefer people not use the verb "google", but rather "search on Google" or "perform a Google search". Well, that's not going to happen, so in the meantime, to disambiguate them, I capitalize the proper noun Google, and lowercase the verb google. Whether or not "wiki" is a proper noun or verb is an equally important topic, but is beyond the scope of this post. Even I can only digress so much.)
Back to the lotto tickets. The Google search leads me to a wiki on uniform invoices. "Uniform invoices" comes up when I search for "taiwan lottery"? ¿Que? It seems odd, but then the answer becomes clear. The Taiwan government requires all merchants to use the same receipts to standardize their sales tax collection. And what better way to make sure that a transaction is reported than by giving the customer an incentive to demand the standard receipt. Make it a lotto ticket!! Freakin genius! So often, the tax avoider is more creative than the tax collector. Round of applause, Taiwan, you are a formidable foe.
Labels: taiwan
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