No receipt required...
I usually catch some flack from readers when I post something like this but I just thought this was so typical of our experiences here in Italy…a lot depends on who you know and how well you know them.
We met a friend who is an officer of the Questura for coffee this week. The Questura is a police office and our friend is a law enforcement officer. There is a bar near the Questura and Valerie and I went in with our friend for a coffee and a chat. While we were in there, the head of the local immigration office and several other Questura officers came and went and I also noticed a Corpo Forestale officer in there.
While our friend was distracted and talking to another officer I took the opportunity to pay for the coffees, as with many Italians it can be a game to see who pays. The girl behind the counter took my money and gave me my change, no receipt. No scontrino…not even an attempt to give me one before she went back to serving the next law enforcement official that entered the bar.
Today we went to the restaurant of a friend here in the centro storico to say good-bye before our trasferimento and the only other table was occupied by the chief of police for Ascoli and his party. As has happened every other time we have eaten there we paid our friend cash, he put it in his pocket and again no scontrino. All in clear view of the police chief!!
Getting a receipt is prudent when you are in a heavy tourist area but as I’ve mentioned before, when you are out amongst the Italians I really wouldn’t worry about it. The benefits of “la vita provinciale”.
7 comments:
I'd have to disagree with you on this Bryan - do you remember what happened to us last March as we were leaving our favorite pizza place? We were lucky enough to escape without a fine but I'm sure our friends who own the pizzeria were given a fine even tho they gave us the pizza for free!
ALWAYS get a receipt, and if it's a gift, have them indicate it on the scontrino! Better safe than sorry - I can't tell you how upset we were that our friends had to pay a fine for being generous!
I think when you are a guest in a country you should obey the law even is some of the locals do not. If you don't like taxes vote for politicians who will abolish them. It won't happen because some taxes need to be paid; like some of the tax pays for your wonderful, almost free, health care. None of us gets to pick and choose which taxes we want to pay. Not paying them is . . . (what's the word when you take something that doesn't belong to you?)
lol...the police right there and no one worrying about receipts!
The point of this story was the irony..law enforcement are all around us but THE ITALIANS are the ones not wanting to give the receipts.
I have never advocated refusing receipts or avoiding taxes but followers of this blog will have read how ITALIANS have thwarted our honest attempts to pay taxes. We have no problem paying what is due but even officials from tax offices have advised us to do things in "nero". We don't want to do things in "nero" but to avoid the situations I have described we would have to avoid going to most the the establishments in this area.
We just got back from two weeks in Italy and I was wondering about the scontrini we got. Are you supposed to hold them forever, for that day, while what you've bought it being consumed? Feel free to point me to another post if this has been explained. We were just so confused about what to do with them and ended up with pockets bulging with little strips of paper.
Sunday Cook, You can toss those now.
Of course we always liked to keep the ones from special meals we had as a memory.
I think the official line is that you can be stopped within a certain distance of where you made the purchase.
Oh yeah, a number of them have been related to the dustbin. Special ones in the album.
I found it remarkable how many cubic inches of paper they took up after just a few days. An espresso here, an espresso there ...
Post a Comment