As is becoming traditional, I must start with some housekeeping (a blogger’s work is never done, and all that). You may be one of those who smirked at my pitiful attempt at Psychology 101 last week, when I pretended I thought I could get into the mind of the confidence trickster. If so, you might be interested in hearing, from the horse’s mouth, a first-person account of the motivations of the con man. This is a keynote address given by Frank Abagnale in 2013 to, I believe, a conference for senior executives in Federal government in the US, and it not only alerts you to the liberties that Spielberg took with Abagnale’s biography in his film Catch Me If You Can, but also gives you insight into the man himself. Of course, as you listen, a little voice inside your head keeps asking whether you can actually believe anything he says, but both Bernice and I found this a very entertaining way to pass 30 minutes. You can watch it on YouTube here.
And now to today’s main course. I feel like an actor with a walk-on, one-line part in one of Shakespeare’s histories. Picture, if you will, a stage peopled by men all named after counties, with the most powerful, who is either the most handsome and manly or, more interestingly, the most shrivelled and ugly, enthroned, downstage left. (If this is one of those trendy modern-dress versions, the nobles may also have been updated, and be named after some of the newer counties: My Lord Tyne and Wear, what news of Merseyside? He is at odds with Greater Manchester. On reflection, I think we’ll stick to tradition.) I enter, upstage right, decked out in doublet and hose and a suitably flattering codpiece, and holding a rolled and sealed parchment, bound with a bright scarlet ribbon. I stride purposefully across the stage’s diagonal, extend the parchment towards the nobleman, bow with a flourish, and deliver my one line: News from Portugal, my liege.
Yes, my friends. I know that you have been waiting anxiously for the next instalment of the property tax story. Well, here it is.
You will remember that Micha’el paid the outstanding semi-annual property tax by bank transfer to the Portuguese Tax Authority, but, unfortunately, because of an unsympathetic bank-teller, the payment was not accompanied by the requisite document reference number or my NIF (the equivalent of a social security number). Consequently, the payment was not credited to my account with the Tax Authority. As 31 May, the final date for payment, drew nearer, I decided that it would be politic first to make a second payment correctly, and only then, at leisure, to try to locate the first payment in the system and get it credited to cover the second instalment due in November. Micha’el, bless him, transferred the money (this time effortlessly and accurately, through an ATM) and, last week, I made my way, again, into the labyrinth of the Tax Authority website, following the trail of thread that I had carefully paid out behind me on my last expedition. I remembered Citizen Kane (it suddenly strikes me that it is probably unwise to publicise one’s answer to a security question on one’s blog, but it’s too late now), and meandered almost effortlessly to my personal page. There, in my message inbox, was a long and very official-looking message from the Tax Authority, which looked like, and, as Google Translate confirmed, actually was, a statement of payment received. My disproportionate sense of achievement can perhaps be ascribed to my relief at no longer facing the prospect of a kangaroo trial, and an indeterminate period inside a Portuguese jail.
And then (Why, oh why, does there always have to be an and then?), when I woke up on Sunday morning, I found, in my inbox, an email from the Tax Authority which refused to yield its secrets to my cursory glance; all I could make of it was 25 June and 50,000 euros. Ever the optimist, I immediately assumed that I was being given until 25 June to pay a 50,000-euro fine for non-payment of the 50-euro tax. However, I decided to run the email through Google Translate before waking Bernice and telling her that we needed to pack immediately and make our way to some third-world country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Portugal. What a surprise when I did indeed translate it. This is what I read:
On June 25, the first 2020 special drawing of the “Lucky Invoice” will take place. Three prizes worth 50,000 euro each will be drawn. To qualify for the draw, simply request the insertion of your tax number (NIF) on all invoices.
As I contemplate the convoluted, and, doubtless, multiple navigations through the website that I will need to go through in order to be sure that I have, actually, requested the insertion of my tax number on all invoices, I just know that that word ‘simply’ is going to haunt me.
Equally intriguing is the fact that the prize money is not to be awarded, as you might have thought, in crisp 500-euro notes in a delightful pastel lavender shade. Nor even, since the 500-euro note is no longer being printed, in crisp yellow 200-euro notes. (Apparently, in common with Canada and Singapore, Europe is phasing out its highest-denomination bill in an attempt to make things more difficult for international terrorists, who will now need two large suitcases to carry a million euros in cash, rather than managing with one medium one, as in the past. As if the life of an international terrorist were not difficult enough already!)
But, no. Scrap that image of Bernice and I falling back onto a water bed with huge quantities of banknotes fluttering to the floor around us. Apparently, the award will be given in Certificados do Tesouro Poupança Crescimento, which I must admit sounds very impressive. It turns out that these are Treasury Savings Growth Certificates (which sounds almost as impressive). So that’s today’s addition to my Portuguese vocabulary. Certificados do Tesouro is obviously Treasury Certificates; Crescimento is clearly Growth, as in crescendo and a crescent moon. In that case, by a process of illumination, Poupança must be Savings, although I can’t find any etymological hook to hang this word on, so it will just be floating around inside my head for a day or two until it swims out of reach and is lost to me for ever.
Speaking of crescimento, the kids’ vegetable nursery is coming along nicely – obviously benefitting from some tender loving care.
