The Receipt That Did Not Count: My First Fapiao — Epoche B1
23 October, Thursday First expense claim of my internship today, and it taught me more about how China works than the whole first month. On Tuesday I bought materials for the client workshop — 340 yuan at the stationery shop, paid by phone. I kept the till receipt flat in my notebook like a good intern. At the finance desk this morning, Ms Wei looked at it for about two seconds. “This is a xiaopiao,” she said. “I need the fapiao.” The difference, as she explained it: a till receipt is just the shop talking. A fapiao is a tax invoice, issued through the tax authority's system, and the moment one is issued, the sale exists officially and the shop owes tax on it. That is the cause, and everything else follows as effect. Because only the fapiao puts the purchase on the state's books, it is the only paper the company's accounts — and the tax office behind them — will accept. Shops never offer it; the customer must ask. For years some cities even printed a scratch-off lottery on fapiao so that customers would insist. There is a further rule: a company fapiao must show the employer's exact registered name and its eighteen-character taxpayer number. Everyone here keeps both saved in a phone note. Wang sent me the office one without being asked, the way you lend a stapler. So at lunch I went back to the shop, showed the saved note, and the clerk scanned a code. The electronic fapiao arrived by email in under a minute. Printed, stapled, approved. New rule in my notebook, above the receipt: paying is easy to prove. Making the sale official is the paperwork. References Confucius. (c. 5th Century BCE). The Analects (Lun Yu). (Various editions available).