(Jamma) Fighting tax evasion with receipts, "Why not apply this tax lottery in Italy too?" the question is asked by Giovanni D'Agata, president and founder of the "Rights Window".
They invent all of them to fight the scourge of tax evasion which is not just an Italian affair. The news that following Giovanni D'Agata
draws attention, it can make you smile but it also hides a reward mechanism that could encourage consumers and end users to demand a receipt with each purchase and be an important tool in the fight against the phenomenon by the State. From September, in fact, every shop receipt in Slovakia will also be usable as a lottery ticket. The project, confirmed by the Ministry of Finance which announced it months ago with the intention of fighting tax evasion in the Eastern European state, will allow Slovakians to register the serial number of each receipt in a national lottery system , through the hundreds of Tipos points of sale or through the internet or a smartphone application. A fortnightly draw will delight 28 winners each month, ten of whom will take home €10.000, or a car, and other smaller prizes. Finance Minister Peter Kazimir justified the move as an incentive for people to always ask for a receipt every time they make a purchase, forcing shopkeepers to pay VAT and thus helping to prevent tax evasion. Every place is a country: many, in fact, even in Slovakia do not ask for a receipt, but few know how much money the state loses in the shadow economy, underlined the Minister. From 1 September, therefore, it will be worth insisting on every small purchase (higher, however, than 1 euro) to have a receipt or tax receipt, which will entitle the holders to participate in the lottery. The monthly jackpot will be 120 euros in total, and the prizes will be tax-free or levy-free. As mentioned, to "play" the lottery you need to register - in Tipos stores, via the internet or mobile applications. But some chain stores are thinking about making life easier for their customers, writes Pravda today, by skipping this step. Companies such as Billa or Tesco, and a number of restaurants and shops, should be able to distribute, together with the receipts, "tax lottery" tickets directly with automatic registration by their computer systems, connected online with the system of lottery. The smart marketing move is designed to incentivize consumers to choose to make their purchases at stores that will offer this free additional service, which will avoid the boredom and wasted time of registering individually for the system. The idea of the 'fiscal lottery' is quite new in the European Union, where Malta was the first to introduce it in 2004, the year it was admitted to the EU. But it is Taiwan, where it has existed since 1950, as we read on AFP, that invented it. Georgia launched a receipt lottery last year but abolished it after seven months due to the low impact the revenues had on the national budget.
At this point the "Rights Window" asks itself: why not replicate it in Italy?
