Postby sbaustin » Fri Feb 22, 2013 8:46 am
We received a generous gift last year that contained a gift certificate to Astrid y Gaston and last night we decided to enjoy a nice meal and a few tragos there (by the way, Thank You). As usual the food and service were good. The total was a little more than the gift cert and we paid with cash and asked specifically for a boleta. He came back with the change and the exact same "NO COMPROBANTE" slip they give you before you pay. I was a little annoyed so I went to talk to the manager on the way out and asked for the boleta. He goes away and comes back and another manager had it in his pocket the entire time.
To be clear, I never really thought the issue was systematic or a general policy, the response we got from Gaston (or handler) was that probably the waiter was trying to game the system and steal the money as opposed to being a general policy to avoid taxes, however it requires collusion between the waiter, manager, and accounting to be able to do this over a period of time (could have been an isolated instance) and as a flagship store it really doesn't reflect well on him.
Anyways, after seeing how much in taxes we pay, my wife has become the boleta police when we go out and she actually wrote to Gaston (he replied or maybe a handler who knows) because if anyone should be paying taxes, it should be Gaston since he is and rightly so championing a lot of Peruvian causes. Anyways, that made me curious and I'd love to know if anyone of you have gone there recently or plan to go to see if they actually give you a real boleta or the fake "No comprobante" especially if you are not Peruvian or with a Peruvian. The "No comprobante" paper says so at the very bottom and the boleta has a serial number toward the top. It should be obvious and I'd love to know what you get (if you pay cash) or your opinion on the matter.
In general if you don't get a boleta from an establishment, it means they aren't paying taxes on that sale. I'm no fan of paying taxes by any means, but that doesn't mean others should game the system or make it easy for their employees to do the same. My two cents.