Quietly busy

Wednesday, mid afternoon, my time is my own. More or less. La petite coquinette is spending her second day (first full one) downstairs with her young neighbours and la nourrice. Dropped her off this morning and sidled out when she wasn't looking. All has been quiet since, even when I stopped briefly on the landing to wistfully listen on my way in and out of the building. No doubt I'll wean myself off that eventually.

Not that I've been twiddling my thumbs and pining (not too much, anyway). Notice of a £100 penalty from HM Revenue & Customs for failing to file a tax return in time saw to that. Fined for neglecting to inform them that they owe me money for the last tax year seems a bit unfair, that's the UK tax office for you. A phone conversation with a distinctly unsympathetic Geordie jobsworth informed me that I had no choice but to pay and appeal. 'Rules is rules' apparently, so a letter of appeal is already on its way across the Channel. Don't hold your breath…

Another bit of paperwork out of the way is a letter to the Syndic (our building management company) to accompany the cheque for the latest charges, pointing out that last year's AGM still hasn't been called yet (technically due within the first 3 months of the year), and that the last set of accounts approved dates back to 2009. I politely asked them not to cash the cheque until the AGM has been held and the previous years' accounts closed. Not holding my breath on that one either.

The weather in Lyon continues to be fine. It was sunny over the weekend but rather breezy. The pushchair was almost blown over during a walk along the river and into the park on Sunday, and watching OL end a 4 game run without a win (including the limp exit from the Champions League in Cyprus last week) against Lille on Saturday evening was rendered a rather chilly experience with the Mistral whistling through Gerland. Today the wind has dropped and temperatures up into the 20s, where they are forecast to remain for the next few days, which might have the whole city holding its breath and noses soon because the bin men are on strike in protesting at the privatisation of the service. Not sure how effective the strike will be with the council bringing in interim workers to collect rubbish, but then that's only going to harden the attitude of the unions…

On the wider political stage, with the countdown to the presidential election now below forty days, the various drama queens are all warming up nicely. Front National candidate, Le Pen fille, now has her 500 nominations. One suspects the FN was merely making political capital out her of potentially being prevented from standing for president, although one political commentator on TV reckoned it was the ruling UMP party deliberately making her sweat by withholding permission for local maires to sign her nomination until the last moment. Meanwhile le president-candidat himself has been trying on more and more of Madame Le Pen's clothes in a bid to drain support from the far right, a tactic which has made up some ground but so far not enough. A recent poll put him ahead in the first round, but still losing the second round to Hollande.

La declaration des impots

This year marks the first time we have to fill in tax returns on our own. Not entirely unaided mind you, because we had a lesson yesterday on how to do it from the lawyer who did it for us last year. In previous years, accountants provided under the terms of la bienheureuse's mutation to France had submitted our returns for us, though it's debatable whether this made things easier or not, as the forms they provided for us to fill in seemed more complicated than the tax forms themselves. Though of course they were in English, so in theory the chances of a faulty tax return were reduced...

France still collects tax in arrears. ie salaries are paid untaxed (though in contrast, social security contributions are removed at source, and the latter take almost as large a slice of our income as income tax), and tax returns for the year only have to be submitted by the end of May the following year. And it's possible to pay the tax for one year in a single lump sum, the deadline for which isn't until the end of September. Though there are also options to pay in 3 installments spread between March and September, or in 10 'monthly' installments. All very complicated. There was talk before the election of moving to a pay as you earn system, as in the UK, but that requires figuring out how to handle the changeover year, notably whether everybody in France gets one year 'tax-free', so it remains to be seen whether it ever happens.

They have made things slightly easier in recent years, at least for people on a regular salary, by introducing 'pré-remplit' tax returns. ie the forms arrive in our letter box, partly filled in with name, address, etc, and one's taxable income for the year, which is provided to the tax authorities by one's employer. All of which makes it fairly simple to fill out. In fact, we really only have one other figure to fill in - total income from bank account interest. And if we do it online we don't even need to provided the documentary evidence that's required if it's done with a paper form. Marvelous. Though of course we do have to keep the documents available in case the authorities decided to check. Our advisor told us this was unlikely though. Ho hum...