[Taiwan Stories]
A Slip Of Charitable Acts
What do these boxes do?
You might be surprised to find out that it's a rather charitable acts of Taiwanese people. It's called the "receipt donation box." In Taiwan, receipts given by the shops don't just tell you how much you've purchased and how much tax you've paid; they have their own value.
In 1950, the government wanted to boost tax revenue tackle the problem of tax evasion by shop owners and therefore introduced the "Uniform-Invoice Lottery," encouraging consumers to obtain Uniform Invoice (receipt in Taiwan) from the shop owners. The Finance Bureau would draw the lottery on the on the 25th of every odd-numbered month and announces the winning number on top of the uniform invoices, and whoever holds the uniform invoice with the winning number would be rewarded with a prize of NT$200 (General Prize)~NT$2,000,000 (First Prize). (Approximately US$6.2~US$62,500). The tiny slips hence have their own value, which is, a remote chance of winning some pocket money.
Some charity organizations in Taiwan, like Genesis Social Welfare Foundation in the picture above, see the potential of using these little slips, which people sometimes find redundant, to boost their operational incomes. An adult would carry about 2~5 receipts per day (partly thanks to Taiwan's prosperous "convenient store culture"), which would make 120~300 slips of receipt to go through just for a remote hope of winning. For those who never take up the habits of checking the lottery bi-monthly, or for people who have a kind heart, they simply leave the receipts in the boxes every time after they purchase something. The chance of winning then are transferred to those in need.
"The organizations must get thousands, if not million, slips of receipts every month, right?" You are quite right. And it is actually another nice part of the story. For Genesis Social Welfare Foundation, an organization who got into this fund-raising method early and also had long-term reputation on caring the elderly and the underprivileged, would get MOUNTAINS of receipts like the photo below shows. It then relies on groups of volunteers to sort out the receipts given by the kind hearts. (Quite a big portion of volunteers are not young either).
I've personally tried such volunteering work for Taiwan Guide Dog Association. No easy task. The boxes reflects the kindness from both the shoppers and the volunteers.
Notes:
1. For more information on how Uniform Invoice works, please refer to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Invoice_lottery
2. Genesis Social Welfare Foundation is known for taking care of people with PVS, the elderly and the underprivileged in Taiwan. For more info, please check:
http://www.genesis.org.tw/english.htm
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