WE GOT A ONE EURO CHEQUE !

Mr. G. got his pension cheque covering 6 months i.e. from January til June 2012.



When he saw the amount his eyes almost popped out and he immediately thought of an error. Even though it's a very small amount he gets twice per year, because he hasn't worked a lot in Italy, the Italian government has to pay a pension for the years he worked there.

I had never seen a cheque of ONE € (1.27 $) ! It certainly couldn't be a joke because when it comes to pay governments in the whole world don't have any humor. But still I laughed that much that my belly hurt. And all of our friends did the same ! With this amount you can't even buy a bread !

Mr. G. called and was informed that this amount is normal, as the Italian Government had payed him from 2008 til 2011 a gross pension, because they had forgotten to deduct the taxes. Now some very efficient employee had found the mistake and deducted the amount of these 3 years in one shot ! No wonder that Italy's economy is rather bad if they don't deduct income taxes, and of course it's always the less fortunates who have to pay !

A PENSION INCREASE

"Creative" pictures are here

Pookie sleeps in her new 1 € basket, couldn't spend more !

Yesterday I found a letter from the german tax office. Getting letters from a tax office are seldom something nice. But in this case it was. Mr. Gattino got a pension raise !! He had worked in Germany beginning of the 60th for exactly 3 years and therefore has right on german pension. Now in the context of a European community you have the right to claim a pension from every European country you worked before.

After almost one year of letter exchanges and signatures and stamps, he finally got the enormous amount of € 59 pension per months from the German tax office. But one should not complain, money is money and it's better then nothing. And now the amount had increased ! How wonderful. I looked on the printed formular and saw the number 30 ! Wow, I thought 30 € that's a lot ! But then looking closer it was exactly 31 Euro cents per months of course.

In order to get this enormous amount every month he had to prove that he was still alive. There was no doubt with that, because I heard him swearing in the basement. To get this proof officially he had to fill in a 3 page long formular, sign it and then go to the Waterloo administration with passport and residence proof to get a stamp. That's what he did. Usually he would have sent me, but this was impossible because he had to show himself alive.

After having spent 1 1/2 h at the administration office, he finally was now sure that he was still breathing and very much alive and it was even officially recorded. He then put the 3 page long formular in an envelope, sent his wife (me) to the post office where I payed 0,80 cents for the stamps and could finally post it. 80 cents that's almost 3 months of pension ! And the tax office had extra expenses too and all that for 31 cents !

But in some way it is nice too. At least now one of us can pee in a public place once a months and the pension pays for it.