Dad’s a veterinarian of 26 years and over time has upgraded his location from utter slums to his current office, situated on prime real estate between the local church and market. Despite gradual improvements in locale, I get the impression that upgrades to his equipment have occurred at a much slower rate, if at all. The majority of his business is house calls, so he spends most of the day passing between home and office (4 blocks apart), receiving and running errands from mom, eating and napping from 2 to 4 as is the Mexican way, all the while anticipating phone calls from clients.
When he’s at his small office, he is guaranteed to be sitting outside, probably due to the smell of animal filth that has at this point thoroughly saturated every fabric of the place. But there is also very poor lighting which, if you could stand the smell, might also cause you to prefer to be outdoors. On the inside, there’s an old wooden desk and a plant; a divider separates front from back behind which you’ll find a metal table, a couple cages in the corner of various sizes, and that’s about it. It appears that all of his tools and supplies fit into one of two carrying cases. The only semblance of beauty in the place are the four framed photos on the wall, captured and framed by photographer extraordinaire Trish Linderman, of an iguana, a donkey, a parrot, and a pair of elephants, respectively. The donkey gets at least as much attention as the other three combined.
Prior to arriving here for good, Brenda and her dad has both individually more-or-less boasted about the fact that dad doesn’t pay income taxes. Apparently four or five years ago an auditor came by the office and dad basically told him: “You’re right. I haven’t been paying taxes nor do I keep very thorough records [I think he actually does], but come in and take a look around. Do you see clients? Do you see evidence of prosperity? Does it look like I make more than the bare minimum to survive?”. The auditor, seeing the bare and (in my American opinion) filthy office, and not realizing that a large majority of his business consists of house calls, was content with that explanation.
HOWEVER, just recently the Mexican government has been really pushing to root out non-paying business owners like Brenda’s dad, as well as those who engage in more unofficial and under-the-table type businesses (food sold from houses, various services, people who make a career out of flea markets, etc); if you’re prosperous, or rather if you have a little left over after you feed your family, then you’d better share with the government. And rightfully so. I’m coming to realize that in some respects the Mexican government offers comprehensive social services. Medicine is one that stands out. There are cheap, government-owned hospitals that are covered by social security; any worker in Mexico plus their family is entitled to some level of health care. But they also respect the other side of the coin and demand more of the Mexican people. A law was recently passed that says that obese teachers and parents with obese children can be fined. Will continue to investigate.
An auditor recently came to dad’s office and basically told him “you’re busted and it’s time to pay up”. Dad was freaked. I watched him grow clearly more and more worried over the course of the week as he waited for his appointment. The damage? He had to pay a fine of 4,500 pesos (less than $400 dollars) to cover the last FIVE years, and from now on he has to pay 100 pesos ($8 dollars) per month. I explained to him what I think he already knew… that mathematically he lucked out.
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