A novel way to beat the estate tax

According to this report, a couple owned a department store together in France.  When the wife died in 1934, the husband should have paid a death tax of 38% on her half of the business.  To avoid that tax, he reported instead that his daughter died, and the daughter then assumed the identity of the wife.  Bingo, no death tax.

How did this story come to light?  The daughter had a very long life.  So long that she became famous for it, apparently living for 122 years and 164 days.  Subsequent investigation turned up the possible fraud, the daughter may actually have died at age 100.

The woman was Jeanne Calment, a name that JLM may remember.  She was the one who sold her apartment for a life annuity at age 90, only to outlive the buyer.  Talk about buyer's remorse!  His estate had to keep paying the annuity, so the final price for apartment was double its initial value, according to Wikipedia.

Not everyone is buying the story that a daughter could adopt the identity of her mother in a small town and everyone in town would either not notice or keep the secret.  The evidence for fraud is thin—inconsistent passport descriptions, stories that don't match known facts, and the observation that in her 100s she seemed about 20 years younger.

I'd like the story to be true.