Aaaaaaaargghhh Computer says no! I have spent the week trying to file my annual income tax return. It started badly with getting locked out of the auto-entrepreneur website to check my husband's monthly declarations for his business. Despite several phone calls and emails I'm still locked out but I did manage to get an annual total. A few clicks later on the "impots" site and I find out that the change of situation that I requested in November has still not been actioned and I cannot enter both my husband's income and mine on the same return. I have 7 days to sort it out, 5 if you don't count the weekend. There are over 5.5 million civil servants in France, that's 1 in 5 of every working adult. With 24% of GDP spent on these "fonctionnaires" who on average work fewer hours, get more holiday (42 days instead of 28), better sick pay, early retirement and better pension packages, you'd think they would be the most helpful, delightful bunch of people, oiling the great machine that is the French bureaucratic system. Alas, no. Stay tuned for (hopefully) a positive result next week.
