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Saturday 25 December 2021

Day 648 of self-isolation - Merry Christmas from France

Merry Christmas from France

I got an unexpected Christmas present today, from the VAT people in France. They think I owe them money - they think I didn't pay them for Q3 2021. And they are demanding payment, with menaces.

So I gave them a polite reply, explaining that I filled in the VAT MOSS form for the Irish Moss people, and that I paid the Irish Moss people (who are then supposed to pay each of the 27 EU members), and I sent them screen caps showing that the amount they was asking for was correct, but that I have already paid it, and that perhaps they need to talk to the Irish people.

There are 27 EU countries, and therefore 27 VAT offices capable of getting this wrong. In the past, it's been Hungary, and that was sorted out by the UK Moss people, but since we left the EU, the UK no longer offer this service, so I went with the Irish tax people, on the grounds that at least they speak English.

And I'm still wondering how come, since we left the EU, I'm still paying EU taxes.

As an extra Christmas Eve present, I upgraded my main workstation from Fedora 34 to Fedora 35, which I've done on other computers, and which should be routine. But it wasn't, and when I got to the point where Yum didn't work (that's the program that does updates and installs new software), I decided to scrap the old system and do a fresh install of Fedora 35.

Which meant that I had to do a whole bunch of other things, like copy the bookmarks from my Firefox and gtfp installs, reinstall "Basic Paye Tools" (which means that I also have to install a bunch of 32 bit libraries, because HMRC hasn't noticed yet that everyone is using 64 bit computers). And I had to do all the configuring that makes my main workstation, work the way I expect. So, several hours work.

On the good side, my weight is up to 13 stone. It's good news because I was 13 stone 11 before I went to hospital for the 17 day stay, and while I was there I lost 18 pounds, mostly because I spent 10 days not eating on account of peritonitis. So I've been trying to actually gain weight recently. And I've been doing two 20 minute sessions on the static bike, for exercise.



 

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