Fapiao

Any expat in China will very quickly be confronted with Fapiaos (发票), essentially an official receipt issued by the local government. This is a necessity for anyone who needs Individual Income Tax (IIT) deductions, as well as for all reimbursement requests. However, this is generally not willingly given out by businesses (except for the ones that exclusively serve expats) since the giving of the fapiao means that they now must pay tax on this sale, sometimes they even have to pay the local government a percentage (generally 5%) of the sale to obtain the said fapiao.

While there are certainly some abuse of Fapiaos amongst the expats, the worst is something that I heard over this past week. While traveling to Amsterdam, a relative of mine had visited the Red Light district as a de rigueur sightsee item. As he was a part of a group of Chinese tourists, the ladies in the windows beckoned to them the best they can. At first he couldn’t make out what the ladies were saying, but after a few minutes he realized that they were saying “有发票，可报销”, which roughly translates to “have fapiao, can reimburse”. This could only mean that Chinese customers were requesting fapiaos (most likely marked as for food / drinks) for these services. And what kind of Chinese tourists requests fapiaos for reimbursement? Officials.