In France, income tax is computed from taxpayers' individual returns, using
an algorithm that is authored, designed and maintained by the French Public
Finances Directorate (DGFiP). This algorithm relies on a legacy custom language
and compiler originally designed in 1990, which unlike French wine, did not age
well with time. Owing to the shortcomings of the input language and the
technical limitations of the compiler, the algorithm is proving harder and
harder to maintain, relying on ad-hoc behaviors and workarounds to implement
the most recent changes in tax law. Competence loss and aging code also mean
that the system does not benefit from any modern compiler techniques that would
increase confidence in the implementation. We overhaul this infrastructure and
present Mlang, an open-source compiler toolchain whose goal is to replace the
existing infrastructure. Mlang is based on a reverse-engineered formalization
of the DGFiP's system, and has been thoroughly validated against the private
DGFiP test suite. As such, Mlang has a formal semantics; eliminates previous
handwritten workarounds in C; compiles to modern languages (Python); and
enables a variety of instrumen-tations, providing deep insights about the
essence of French income tax computation. The DGFiP is now officially
transi-tioning to Mlang for their production system.