Bernadette thinks it is shameful. Never did the 76-year-old retired primary-school teacher, who lives on a pension of 800 euros (US$970) a month, think she would find herself classed among France's super-rich.
"I worked hard all my life, I saved for my retirement, and this is what I get," she said, waving the form from the tax authorities.
"It's just terribly unfair. I'm not rich, just look at how I live. All I have is this apartment," she said.
Bernadette's apartment, however, is her problem. She inherited the faded, three-bed flat in a fine Haussman block in Paris's chic sixth arrondissement more than 30 years ago, and it is now valued at 1.2 million euros.
This means Bernadette is subject to l'impot sur la fortune, or ISF, the wealth tax levied on all French residents with belongings worth more than 730,000 euros. But, like growing numbers of pensioners in a similar situation, she cannot pay it.
Her annual tax bill, nearly 2,000 euros, represents almost three months' pension.
Soaring property prices are creating tens of thousands of nominal super-rich each year. According to the finance ministry, more than 335,000 people paid the ISF last year, nearly 90 percent more than in 1997.
Some of those being asked to pay exist on so little they are exempt from paying income tax.
"The problem is particularly bad in Paris," said Marcel Ricard, of the National Estate Agents Federation.
"Over the past five or six years, property prices here have been climbing by 15 percent a year. In some fast improving areas, they've almost doubled since 1999 or 2000," he said.
The north and east of Paris have seen prices surge at unprecedented rates as even comfortably-off families find they can no longer afford to live in the sought-after arrondissements.
Paris is not the only part of France suffering from the ISF, which raises 2.7 billion euros a year. Property prices in Marseille have risen by 80 percent in four years thanks to a new, high-speed TGV line linking the city with Paris. And on the Ile de Re, an unspoilt haven off La Rochelle which has become a favored summer retreat of the chattering classes, dozens of local smallholders are having to sell off their land piecemeal.
Pensioners are plainly in trouble, but with economists estimating that disposable incomes in France have fallen by as much as 20 percent over the past few years, professional couples are also in difficulty.
Thierry Plantade, who bought a big four-bedroom Paris flat for 345,000 euros in 1998, now finds it is worth 800,000 euros.
"I find it outrageous, maddening, that just like that, someone decides we're rich," he said.
A government spokesman said reform of the ISF was being discussed.
"But it's a very sensitive issue, particularly on the left. And you know, these things can take a very long time," he said.
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