Secretly Abolished

Finance Minister’s “Tax-Funded Lottery” Flops

Finance Minister Marterbauer had planned to award 2,500 euros monthly to 100 winners—but the project has now been canceled.(Bild: Diverse Fotografen honorarfrei)

A “receipt lottery” with prizes of up to 250,000 euros was intended to “strengthen the culture of keeping receipts”—but now the government has quietly and secretly scrapped the project. It now plans to implement other measures instead.

There was a lot of buzz in recent months. “To create incentives for keeping digital receipts, a receipt lottery will be introduced throughout Austria starting in the fall of 2026,” said Finance Minister Markus Marterbauer, explaining the federal government’s flagship project. This was set to coincide with the planned digital rollout beginning October 1.

Measure against the black economy
Background: The curious project was intended to “strengthen the receipt culture” and prevent too much revenue from bypassing (unregistered) cash registers. The government hoped this incentive would lead to more revenue and less illegal activity. It was reported that 200 million receipts were expected.

And how was that supposed to work? Consumers download an app that allows them to scan and manage both printed and digital receipts. The measure was primarily aimed at the new digital invoices in the fight against “paperwork chaos.” The plan was to then draw a certain number of winners “at random” each month, who would be notified of their winning ticket via a push notification on their cell phone. In the monthly drawings, 100 winners would each receive 2,500 euros, plus 250,000 euros for two lucky winners in up to two special drawings. In total, four million euros were to be distributed throughout the year.

Quietly and discreetly, the Ministry of Finance is now canceling the tax-funded lottery. They say they want to support the introduction of electronic receipts with other measures, such as more inspectors or an information campaign...