I have to admit that scams mesmerize me, and UDN (here, here) reported on an appalling one today....
Everyone knows 85C, the local coffee chain that rocketed out in the last few years, establishing stores in small towns that Barista and Starbucks had turned up their collective noses at, and even colonizing far-off Sydney with a store.
Down in Tainan two of the branch stores hit upon an ugly scam that can't possibly be unique to those two businesses. Virtually every major business on the island has a collection box for the receipts right there next to the cash registers. These are supposedly given to charitable organizations, who then use them to win money in the receipt lottery. These two 85 stores, however, took the receipts, fished out the big ones, and then presented them to the tax office as receipts for canceled orders -- which lowered their incomes and saved them thousands of Taiwan dollars.
The tax office became suspicious and sent operatives to the stores, who purchased items worth NT$500 and put the receipts in the charity box. However, before they did so, they photographed them. Busted!
85C has been in trouble over the years for other issues. A while back they got sued by a youth employment advocacy group for not paying the labor insurance for some of their young employees, which also claims that they underpay their workers. 85C sent them a legal warning over the latter claim. Then there was the issue of "future cakes" at the end of last year -- if you went into certain stores after 8 pm, it was said, you could buy a cake with the next day's date on it.
Whatever the case, I'll never look at those ubiquitous collection boxes the same way again. Sad.
[Taiwan]
6 comments:
這樣以後85c的形象會每下愈況
A ha! That no good first family has been at it again. I'm sure they're behind this. They're the only people on this island capable of pulling off such a scheming and devious stunt.
I have here a list of the names of 207 members of the first family who are known by the Legislative Yuan as being members of this conspiracy...I demand an answer, Mr. Turton. There will be no covering up, sir, no covering up. You are not going to get your hands on this list. And I deeply regret having to say...that there are 104 card-carrying DPP members and members of the first family in this outrageous scandal to defraud The People. And of these 275 fraudsters on my list who are members of the former first family, every one...count them...every one has participated in the pillaging of our nation through these receipts for coffees, teas and baked goods!
Yours!
CY
p.s.
The world looks a whole lot clearer from the top of a truck with a bull horn.
Kind of a shame though. 85C is the only cafe that makes a chocolate cake worth eating (the Italian chocolate mousse cake). The other coffeeshop/bakery cakes taste like styrofoam.
Hmm! I always thought their coffee tasted like in was made in a Denny's ashtray.
Oh their coffee is awful (the one near me can make a mediocre cup at least), no two ways about it. I just like their chocolate cake.
Their cream puffs used to seem good, but then I discovered Beard Papa.
I have to laugh ...
Where else but in Taiwan could the government set up an anti-tax-avoidance scheme (the point of the lottery is so people _want_ a receipt), which is then turned around to actually became a way for scofflaws to avoid taxes?
Although I can't condone breaking the law, I think somehow tax evasion must the most understandable of crimes.
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