A Clean Pair of Hands Read Online Free Page B

first source of happiness is health. Then a loving family life, and friendships, together with a fulfilling job. In summary, health, love and work are the three keys to happiness. Money is a means to acquire some of the essentials, but it plays a secondary role.’
    Professor Ernst Fehr, Austrian economist and psychologist
    The François Mitterrand presidency, which came to power in 1981, established itself as the flag-bearer for a culture that pervaded and has continued to pervade French life. It flourished in an environment of inequality, self-interest and cheating, and set up its own framework for cheating on a massive scale, based on an earlier communist model. It demonstrated how a government can quite overtly exploit ways of playing beyond the limits of its own rules to tip the odds in favour of staying in power, and acquire whatever financial resources are necessary to secure support and influence election results. In short it was a kleptocracy. So how did French taxpayers respond?
    They felt under threat from their own government, so just as in ancient times, those who had the means built their own citadels to protect them. The modern equivalentof a stone fortress and private army was to set up contact networks of influence and protection along the lines of the socialist government’s own model.
    Tax evasion, in France, is founded and justified in the belief that the level and form of taxation is onerous and unfair, and evasion has become a national sport. Knowing this, the tax authorities assume that taxpayers will under-declare, so for business tax assessment inspectors arbitrarily increase declared benefits or reduce offsetting losses before calculating taxes – thus inciting taxpayers to be even more determined to beat the system. Anybody who raises objections to the treatment is likely to be subjected to invasive tax inspections over a long period. Large companies in all business sectors contribute hundreds of thousands a year to political funds by hiring fraudulent consultancies such as Urba, and more recently Bygmalion, to look after their interests with the government. No measurable service is provided but being a contributor to the party in power tends to keep the tax inspectorate under control and open doors to lucrative contracts for public works.
    As they operated well outside the sphere of government influence, the Bodin family business conscientiously practiced the national sport, and did whatever was necessary to wage war on the taxman as part of their mission, whilst considering that their business was run on entirely ethical lines. During their period at the helm, Huguette and François were able to encourage some of the smaller customers to pay cash, thus reducing their Value Added Tax (VAT) bill. However, Huguette Bodin baulked at some of her son Michel’s suggestions for profit improvement, though she did allow any builder’s and tradesman’s idle labour time to be used on projects for the family, their friends, or for ‘marketing purposes’.
    Later, as the younger Bodins were able to exert more control over the direction and style of the business, their ideas were unbridled. Michel’s motivation at first was to prove to his mother that he had more to add and that his newer, expansive ideas could generate greater wealth for them all. He was about to demonstrate over a period of years that in his business and private life, his motivation to achieve could overcome obstacles or constraints. He and Charlotte expanded the business into new market segments, and one of their most successful initiatives was a change of emphasis from shop-fitting mainly for big luxury retailers, a sector that was becoming more competitive and favoured larger suppliers, to renovating the multitude of bars and restaurants for which Paris is noted. The owners of these establishments were a breed apart of mostly independent entrepreneurs, a no-holds-barred community, partly from the provincial regions of France, but also