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Vous pourriez m'expliquer cet impôt ?

Vous pourriez m'expliquer cet impôt ?
Could you explain this tax to me?
From Lesson 141:Polite requests (j'aimerais, tu pourrais...)·French

Questions & Answers about Vous pourriez m'expliquer cet impôt ?

Why use pourriez instead of pouvez here?
Pourriez is the conditional form of pouvoir (to be able to). Using the conditional makes your request much softer and more polite. Vous pouvez means "You can," which can sound a bit direct or demanding, while Vous pourriez means "You could."
Why does m' come right before expliquer? Shouldn't it be Vous me pourriez expliquer?
In French, when you have a conjugated verb followed by an infinitive (an unconjugated verb, like expliquer), the object pronoun goes right in front of the infinitive it belongs to. Since the action being done to you is the explaining, m' (to me) goes directly before expliquer.
Impôt is a masculine word. Why does it use cet instead of ce?
You're right that the masculine word for "this" or "that" is usually ce. However, because impôt starts with a vowel, saying ce impôt would feel clunky. To make pronunciation flow smoothly, French changes ce to cet before masculine nouns that start with a vowel or a silent "h".
Is it normal to ask a question without using inversion or est-ce que?
Yes, especially in everyday spoken French! You can simply use standard sentence word order and raise the pitch of your voice at the end. If you wanted to sound more formal, you could use inversion: Pourriez-vous m'expliquer cet impôt ?

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