Missing by one number is missing by a mile when it comes to winning the NT$10 million (US$339,000) Uniform Invoice lottery — just ask the author of a post on Facebook recently, whose invoice was off by one digit.
The lucky number for the Uniform Invoice lottery for November and December last year was announced on Jan. 25.
The Uniform Invoice system was first thought up in the 1950s to stabilize the government’s source of income.
The bi-monthly lottery, using 3 percent of annual business taxation as funding — as stipulated by Article 16 of the Measure Governing Uniform Invoice Lottery Prize (統一發票給獎辦法) — was introduced to encourage the public to ask for invoices and also preventing businesspeople from evading taxes.
The Ministry of Finance only launched the NT$10 million special prize for the Uniform Invoice lotteries last year and there have been 58 winners so far, with 43 who have already cashed in their prize.
The Facebook social group, Ku MEN Fans, shared the picture of the unlucky invoice on Monday, with the “editor” of the group saying: “There was once an honest chance placed in front of me, but I did not appreciate it; then I regretted most bitterly when I lost the chance, and there can be nothing more painful than this. If I may be given another chance, I would wish for … [NT$]10 million.”
The post sparked a discussion on Internet forums, with one contributor saying: “If I knew I would have cut in line no matter what.”
Cheng Liang-wen (鄭良文), the manager of the Taoyuan County FamilyMart that gave out the invoice that won the NT$10 million prize, said the winner won with the purchase of a NT$25 loaf of bread at 9am on Nov. 20.
Cheng said it was only after some customers talked about it on the day of the announcement of the lucky number that the clerk started looking through the store’s copy of the invoices and ascertained that the store was indeed the one that printed the invoice.
“A friend also wrote on my Facebook page that the netizen who posted on the Web saying his invoice was one digit off was his friend,” Cheng said
The friend also said that if the other person had bought something at the FamilyMart a minute earlier Chang could have also considered early retirement, Chang said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Translated by Jake Chung, staff writer
RISK FACTORS: ‘We hope people can cooperate and endure it ... it is possibly the very important last mile,’ Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said Taiwan’s COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations are to remain the same next month, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The center reported 42,112 new local COVID-19 cases and 85 deaths, saying that the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has dropped to a new low this month. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said that the center is keeping COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations the same due to the local virus situation, and an increase in the number of imported cases of the new Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2, among other risk factors. Easing
TRAVEL CONFERENCE: Representatives from the two countries exchanged views on how to increase tourist numbers, with one identifying individual travel as a trend Taiwan and South Korea aim to increase the number of tourists traveling between the two countries to 3 million, government and tourism industry representatives said at a conference in Hsinchu City yesterday. The annual event was attended by Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Yen-po (陳彥伯); Tourism Bureau Director-General Chang Shi-chung (張錫聰); Taiwan Visitors Association chairwoman Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭); South Korean Representative to Taiwan Chung Byung-won; Yoon Ji-sook, an official at the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; and Korea Association of Travel Agents chairman Oh Chang-hee. Global tourism is expected to soon rebound to between 55 and
DAMAGE CONTROL: The KMT in a statement called the Taiwan Strait ‘international waters,’ after Alexander Huang said China had the right to claim it as internal waters Lawmakers and experts yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) envoy to the US Alexander Huang (黃介正) of acting as China’s stooge, after he said that Beijing has the right to claim waters beyond its maritime territory as its exclusive economic zone and that the US has no legal basis to assert that the Taiwan Strait is an “international waterway.” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said in an online post that most of the world considers the Strait an international waterway, adding that this is important for safeguarding Taiwan. “We have seen US warships transiting through the Taiwan Strait.
The Taichung District Court yesterday sentenced to nine years in prison an unlicensed judo coach who caused the death of a seven-year-old student after slamming him onto the ground more than a dozen times. In its decision against the coach, a man surnamed Ho (何), the court cited his lack of remorse for using excessive force against an inadequately trained child and his failure to reconcile with the parents for his role in their son’s death. Speaking on behalf of the boy’s mother, Taichung City Councilor Jacky Chen (陳清龍) said the family would appeal to a higher court. Prosecutors said that Ho on