The instructions to take part to the receipts fiscal lottery, the prize competition linked to the new "electronic receipt", are now available. Indeed, all citizens of legal age and residing in Italy will be able to participate in the draws when they make a purchase of an amount equal to or greater than 1 euro and show their lottery code. To obtain the lottery code, taxpayers need to enter their fiscal code in the public area of the "lottery portal", that will be soon online. Once generated, the code can be transcribed and/or printed on paper or saved on a mobile device (mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, etc.) and shown to the shopkeeper and/or salesperson. During the initial phase, there will be monthly draws with 3 prizes of 30 thousand euros each and an annual draw with a prize of 1 million euros. The first monthly draw will take place on Friday 7 August 2020. Furthermore, starting from 2021, weekly draws will also be activated. In this case, 7 prizes worth € 5,000 each will be drawn every week.
Lottery prizes will not be subject to any taxation.
Key objectives of the measure – The aim is to use the fiscal lottery to encourage customers to request purchase receipts or, put differently, a demand-side incentive policy measure towards tackling undeclared work. The final purpose of this initiative is therefore to boost customers to request purchase receipts to shopkeepers and, at the same time, to reduce tax evasion by improving voluntary compliance, offering incentives for economic actors to behave ‘properly’.
How to participate - In the first application phase, purchases documented with electronic invoices and those for which the payment data are sent to the Health Card system will not be involved in the lottery. To participate in the lottery, it will be necessary to present the lottery code to the shopkeeper, at the time of purchase. Identification requirements are not due.
Tickets, prizes and draws - Each receipt will generate a number of virtual tickets for participation in the draw, equal to one ticket for each euro spent. Basically, the higher the amount spent, the greater the number of tickets associated with the purchase, up to a maximum of 1,000 virtual tickets. Therefore, in case of expenses equal to or greater than 1000 euros the maximum number of tickets generated will in any case be 1000. For 2020 the draws will be monthly, with a further annual draw. For the 3 monthly draws there are 3 prizes of 30 thousand euros each. For the annual draw, the expected prize is fixed at € 1 million. Also in 2020, special prizes and extractions for purchases made through electronic payment instruments will be provided. Starting from 2021, weekly draws will also be activated.
What if tax compliance became fun? - On the fiscal lottery road, Italy will follow Greece, Malta, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and Portugal, countries that have already introduced a Vat receipt lottery to help reduce undeclared Vat on sales to consumers.
Stefano Latini