Without specifying a date, the Ministry of Finance guarantees that the “Lucky Invoice” will be reinstated in the short term and that “all the extractions planned for this year will be carried out”.
The “Lucky Invoice” competition, which has been temporarily suspended, will be resumed soon and at that time the draws will be made for the remaining months, an official source from the Ministry of Finance told ECO this Friday. The last draw, which every week awards 35,000 euros in Treasury Certificates to consumers who enter their NIF on their invoices, took place on December 28.
“The draw will be resumed as soon as possible and all the draws planned for this year will be carried out,” guaranteed the office of Minister Fernando Medina, clarifying that the suspension “stems from the need to comply with all the legal requirements necessary for it to take place.” As ECO reported, the protocol between the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) and the Treasury and Public Debt Management Agency (IGCP) needs to be renewed every year, authorizing the expenditure to be incurred with the competition.
Last year, the lottery stopped operating on January 27. At the time, Fernando Medina’s office explained that, “as there are protocols that have to be renewed with some regularity and, as this renewal is currently underway, the competition will soon be resumed”.
The competition only resumed two months later, on March 30, although the draws for January were made with the coupons corresponding to invoices from the beginning of the year. As a result, there were weeks when two draws were made for this competition, which awards taxpayers Treasury Certificates worth 35,000 euros.
The renewal of the protocol last year allowed the tax authorities to assume a budget burden of more than 3.26 million euros, including tax, according to an order signed by the Secretary of State for Tax Affairs, Nuno Félix
“Fatura da Sorte” has distributed almost 18.7 million euros in prizes since its creation in 2014, until December 2022.
The competition was created in 2014 by Pedro Passos Coelho’s PSD/CDS-PP government to reward “taxpayers’ fiscal citizenship” and combat the black economy, the executive announced at the time.
To be eligible, consumers have to ask for their NIF (Número de Identificação Fiscal) to be entered on their purchase invoices, the value of which is then divided into coupons.
At first, high-value cars were raffled off and, in 2016, António Costa’s Socialist government kept the raffle going, but stopped offering cars and started handing out Poupança Mais Treasury Certificates, worth 35,000 euros.