Officers found the victim with multiple stab wounds and his female colleague bound to a chair at the property in the small northern village of Bullecourt.
BBC: French tax inspector killed during visit to antique dealer
'Potentially dangerous' job
The inspector arrived Monday afternoon at the antique dealer's home, accompanied by a colleague, to check his accounts.
Mr. Attal said usually agents were sent on tax check missions on their own, but this time there was backup because there had been tensions during previous visits to the antique dealer's business.
Prosecutors said the businessman tied them up and stabbed the inspector, leaving the colleague "terribly shocked" but otherwise unharmed. A union for tax officials said the case showed that its members had a "potentially dangerous" job
The murder victim, a 43-year old civil servant for the tax authorities, was found dead on Monday, killed "most likely by repeated stabbing", the prosecutors' office in the northern French city of Arras said.
The suspected killer, a 46-year-old antiquities dealer, was then believed to have killed himself with a firearm, it said.
The suspect, described by the local mayor as "an ordinary guy", locked up the tax inspector and a female colleague during a tax audit of his business, and tied them up, it said.
The Arras chief prosecutor, Sylvain Barbier Sainte-Marie, told reporters Tuesday that the presumed killer may have planned the murder well ahead of the agents' visit.
Police had found clamps used to tie up the agents "which were probably purchased before the act", according to the prosecutor.
"Early evidence seems to point to a premeditated act," he said.
Budget Minister Gabriel Attal said earlier that "the republic is weeping for one of its own", calling it "revolting" that a public servant was killed "because he did his job".
The inspector arrived Monday afternoon at the antique dealer's home, accompanied by a colleague, to check his accounts.
Attal said usually agents were sent on tax check missions on their own, but this time there was backup because there had been tensions during previous visits to the antique dealer's business.
Prosecutors said the businessman tied them up and stabbed the inspector, leaving the colleague "terribly shocked" but otherwise unharmed.
A union for tax officials said the case showed that its members had a "potentially dangerous" job.
The dealer, a divorced father of two, moved four years ago to the hamlet of Bullecourt, its mayor Eric Bianchin told AFP.
He bought a farm from where he sold bric-a-brac which he picked up at auctions and yard sales around the area.
He was "an ordinary guy", the mayor said, describing him as "helpful, and well-integrated in the village" of some 250 people.
A neighbour, Geoffrey Fournier, described the presumed killer as "discreet" and "apparently hard-working", whose business "seemed to be doing OK".
The French parliament observed a minute of silence in memory of the tax inspector.
On Wednesday there will be ceremonies in regional tax centres in his honour, Attal said
A French tax inspector has been killed during an audit at the home of a dealer in second-hand goods, police say.
Officers found the victim with multiple stab wounds and his female colleague bound to a chair at the property in the small northern village of Bullecourt.
The dealer’s body was found in an outlying building. Officials say he shot himself.
Paris: A French antiques dealer in northern France has killed his tax inspector and then committed suicide, local authorities said Tuesday.
Arras prosecutor Sylvain Barbier Sainte Mairie told reporters that two tax inspectors, a man and a woman, had gone to the suspect’s house on Monday to audit the accounts of his company, a “brocante” store ( flea market) that traded in antiques and second-hand items. property, where he threatened them with a weapon and tied them up.
Antique furniture in France.Credit:Bloomberg
He said the 43-year-old tax inspector had been found dead and tied up, having suffered multiple stab wounds. The other inspector, a 39-year-old woman, was found tied to a chair and released by police.
The suspect was found dead in an annex to the house in an apparent self-inflicted shooting, with a wound to the chest and a gun found near him.
“We believe this is a premeditated homicide case, as the victims had made an appointment with the suspect, so he knew he would find them, and we also found taut straps at the scene,” the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor said a tax investigation had been launched since May this year, but said he could not give details about the nature of the investigation.
The murdered tax inspector was the head of the public finance center in the northern city of Arras. The suspect had no criminal record, but in 2019 he was forced to take anger management classes after an altercation with minors, the prosecutor said.
Reuters
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