Pay Before You Go: Tax Bill Sent To Man’s Grave

GRAVE

 

Even the deceased can’t escape the taxman in France.

As France’s The Local reports, a tax bill was addressed to a particular grave in a cemetery in the Ile-de-France region.

According to L’Expansion, France’s public finances recovery department has sent correspondence to the deceased in the past; however, this is the first time a piece of mail has been specifically addressed to a cemetery plot.

The Vincennes-based branch first sought to reach out to man, who died several months ago, but received the returned mail with the words “Deceased” scrawled atop the letter. However, it seems, the department did not stop there. In an attempt to ensure the letter got to its final destination, someone re-addressed the tax bill (in handwriting) to “Autheuil Cemetery – Tomb 19 – 61190 Autheuil,” Ouest-France reports.

As to be expected, the tax bill was not delivered to its intended recipient, who is currently six feet under, and was instead forwarded to Béatrice Devedjian, the mayor of the small village of Autheuil in northeastern France.

Speaking to France’s RTL radio, Devedjian expressed her shock with the determination to “harass a person until his final resting place.”

However, it appears the cemetery-addressed tax bill may be more of a prank than anything else. As Le Figaro reports, the center of public finances for Saint-Langis-lès-Mortagne, which oversees Autheuil, called the re-addressed letter “more of a schoolboy prank” and said the statement did not come from its department since the man did not live in Autheuil.

Despite the mystery surrounding the origin of the tax bill, the municipality plans to track down the descendants of the deceased man in order to deliver the mail.