Eeeeeee!!! We won, we won, we won!! Granted it’s only 200NT ($6.62 USD), but winning just about anything is pretty darn exciting.
Started in 1951, the Taiwanese government was trying to find a clever way to boost tax revenues without people realizing what was going on. So, the crafty finance chief encouraged locals to obtain receipts from purchases (a non-standard practice at the time), whose numbers would then be entered into a bi-monthly lottery. This did two things: one, stores couldn’t ‘cook the books,’ since they had a paper trail now of purchases made, and two, locals started shopping at stores which provided receipts, since who doesn’t want to win a free lottery. In the course of one year, the tax revenues increased by 75 PERCENT!
Fast forward to last night when Aunt Ivy texted me the winning numbers, and the frantic sorting of receipts accumulated in the past two months commenced. You can only imagine my excitement when I pulled this little nugget out of the pile!
I’m not sure what the odds of winning are, but given that there are 24 million people in this country I was feeling pretty lucky. The fact that the winning receipt came from a bubble tea shop only gave Philip more proof as to the importance of Jules and I consuming bubble tea on a somewhat regular basis.
Foreigners are also allowed to participate in the lottery, so if you’re lucky enough to find yourself in Taiwan one day, keep those receipts! Although we didn’t hit the big time top prize of 20,000,000NT, the fact that we were able to relocate to my birth country, share great adventures as a family and expose Jules to more of the world, then I’d say we’re on a roll.