A Taxing Day

Jnan Sbil Garden renovations starting to take shape finally and looking rather splendiferous I must add, but moving right along...


Rotherham Rob arrived after trekking round the country, he had escaped the confines and temptations of Rotherham to teach bespoke carpentry to the good people of Kenya a few years back. He enjoyed it so much he eventually signed up for 5 years and part of it in Mombassa teaching the feisty inmates of a local borstal how to make their own beds ....literally.

Initially staying for one night he soon saw Fes cannot be fitted into a day and so before long he was tagging along with us on house hunting/renovation advice duties looking slightly bewildered with these mad expats and their house fixation. But he could see the appeal, well who wouldn't?

While he was here I received an official looking Municipality letter demanding the sum of 1700 dh in back taxes but with the previous occupants name on the demand. Off I popped with Ben to clear up this possible anomaly at the tax office to be told the figure quoted was a mistake, phew well thats alright then I thought.....wrong! "No", the mild mannered gentleman behind the counter carried on from his previous statement, " The figure owed is 70,000 dh", gulp and again GULP.

Darting over to the Adoule who had done all the paperwork for the house purchase and was wise in all matters pertaining to bill paying or not as the case may be, he said in Arabic the equivalent of Cobblers, a lovely word in English that suggests all is not as it appears to be in no uncertain way. The bill was apparently for taxes owed in Rabat that had somehow found their way to a previous address. Giving us several sheafs of paper relating to the situation back we went to the office of tax affairs to find Mr Mild Mannered slightly more stubborn and not budging on the situation.

Now in these situations it could be cause for alarm if you let it get to you, but the best thing is to go with the flow, show a bit of patience and then when you least expect it something gets resolved hopefully to your advantage. If you didnt think like that you could spend the majority of your time "climbing the walls" as we say or "pulling your hair out". So as I am not too good with heights and am to all intents and purposes bald, neither of these two panic options is applicable so I just went back to my daily routine leaving all responsibility to the Adoule.

Thats the way to do it.