The Free Consultation

I had arrived the evening before at my greengrocer’s shop, one of my first Italian readers.

He told me he had read a book from the Gillette Saga, titled “OUTSIDE ALL PREDICTION,” and beyond thanking me for giving him a role inside the narrative, he asked me what he should do.

I offered him a free consultation for his shop, given that I had never sold fruit or vegetables, only ever been a consumer of them.

By the rule of holy mother Gillette, I warned him from the start: the approach would be elusion (allowed by law), not evasion (driven by greed) — a thin line many in his market didn’t know how to draw.

I defined perishable goods versus non-perishable, seasonal products, expiration dates, and he, watching me, said: but are we sure you never sold these products?

Daily dated photos, every time damaged goods are discarded, are essential to record the disposal and the loss. The photo, kept with the daily report (date, product, weight), is the concrete visual evidence supporting the accounting documentation — what makes the proof solid in an audit.

Valuation of perishable goods — a 5% cap on revenue was my own literary invention, no such tax law exists, only meant to give him a limit so the tool I was handing him wouldn’t detonate.

Missing returns for some product lines, due to standing supplier agreements, constitute an operating loss — a known contractual condition to flag to the accountant as context, not an anomaly in traceability.

These points, together with the daily report already prepared, form the base the accountant uses to set the correct tax treatment.

When I stopped to let him sense I wasn’t an accountant, he hugged me tight, thanking me, and grabbed a package of products to gift me — but I didn’t accept.

It was just a free access, like the one on my gillettenarrative.