The taxman cometh

The phone call came a week a go. A kind man, speaking slow understandable French explained that a new law was coming into force affecting the social security status of my wife, would I mind if he visited our house to help us understand the legislation? I said yes, and thought nothing more of it.

Then an hour before the scheduled visit I was hit by a panic attack. What if this had nothing to do with Tanya’s social security payments? The French were so notorious for sneaking on their neighbours that the process even had a name - “denunciation”. Did someone suspect we were living beyond our means? Had we been denounced?

My next thought was - so what if we have? I am sure every other trader in the markets slips some sales through on a cash basis, but so far I’d been scrupulously honest. I had nothing to hide….
…..except that as well as honest I was also terribly disorganised. After a long day in the market, one of the last things I felt like doing was filling in a spreadsheet detailing our exact sales. It was often not until a week later that I sat down and tried to reconcile what I remembered selling (as opposed to personally drinking) with the wine that had disappeared from our stock. There was plenty of margin for error and the bare minimum of paper records.

And so I began rushing around the house hiding any signs of wealth. I put the hood up on our convertible car to display the slashed rear windscreen we couldn‘t afford to replace, I changed into scruffy clothes and I arranged the sunshade on the terrace so that I wouldn’t have to show the inside of our apartment.

Ten minutes before our meeting was due to start a smart black Audi pulled up outside the house. I’ve lived and travelled in France for 3 years now and this is the first time I have ever known a Frenchman be early. On time - possibly, and only when there was a TGV to catch. Carelessly and forgetfully late after a long lunch - nearly always. So what was the inspector doing arriving at 2.20? I suspected some ploy to catch me shredding papers and anxiously guided the investigator, I mean social security advisor, onto our terrace.

I could see his eyes roaming over the garden furniture evaluating their cost, he looked up at the imperious green hills and made an excuse about wanting a coffee, presumably so that he could peer inside. By now I was really nervous. A jail sentence awaited me if I was caught defrauding the French treasury. The taxman removed some papers from his case and smiled at the suspiciously high quality of the coffee. His opening gambit couldn’t have been much better.

“Nice place you’ve got here.”