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
Proposed legislation in the US outlines three conditions in which Washington would be authorized to protect Taiwan were China to invade, a report said yesterday. US Representative Ted Yoho this month said he would introduce a Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, which would authorize US military force if China were to invade Taiwan-controlled areas, including its outlying islands. According to a version of the bill obtained by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times), the bill lists three conditions in which a US president would be authorized to use military force to protect Taiwan: If China uses military force
Two new commuter trains are scheduled to be launched in January next year, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said yesterday. The acquisition of EMU-900 commuter train cars is part of the railway operator’s plan to replace 589 train cars that have been in operation for more than three decades. The agency has also placed orders to buy 600 intercity train cars. The first batch of 20 EMU-900 cars is to be delivered to the nation in September, although delivery might be delayed until October due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency said. The batch would be formed into two trains of 10
The Supreme Court on Tuesday found four men guilty of attempted murder in the 2017 stabbing of Spanish surfer Ignacio Prio on a Pingtung County beach in the final ruling in the case, sentencing them to three-and-a-half to six years in prison. The defendants had appealed their convictions for attempted murder in the first and second rulings, which had also led to prison sentences ranging from three-and-a-half years to six years. The then-42-year-old Prio went to Jialeshui Beach (佳樂水) near Kenting (墾丁) on March 31, 2017, was attacked after he asked four men to remove their fishing lines from an area
MEDICINAL HERB: The FRIL protein extracted from hyacinth beans helped laboratory mice survive H1N1 infection and effectively neutralized the coronavirus A protein isolated from hyacinth beans, a medicinal herb known for centuries, has been found to restrict the activities of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses in laboratory experiments, a team of Academia Sinica researchers said yesterday. The beans’ curative effect is documented in the 16th-century Chinese medicine classic Compendium of Materia Medica (本草綱目) and they are also a food source in some countries, the Genomics Research Center’s Chemical Biology Division Director Alex Ma (馬徹) told a news conference in Taipei. Center senior research specialist Jan Jia-tsrong (詹家琮) experimented with up to 500 medicinal herbs to see if they could restrict influenza viruses and
RSS