Flat tax will harm the poor

Flat taxes would be even more unfair to low-income recipients than Heather Long supposes (Briefing, August 15). The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that people in the lowest fifth of incomes paid on average 38% of their gross incomes in taxes in 2003-04, while the richest fifth paid only 35.5%.

The reason is the burden of indirect taxation, which bears much more heavily on low incomes than high ones, and flat income taxes would make things worse. The justification for progressive taxation was first made by Adam Smith himself, because, as he wrote in The Wealth of Nations, inequality should be reduced "as much as possible by relieving the poor and burdening the rich".

Working out how to achieve that would be far more productive for society and the economy than treating rich people's self-interested panaceas like flat taxes as serious proposals for the UK.
Prof John Veit-Wilson
University of Newcastle upon Tyne

If you really want to make the tax system "fairer, simpler and better" (Leader, August 13), you could do no better than advocate the "citizens' income" system advocated by the Green party.

All benefit payments and personal tax allowances are replaced with a flat-rate payment given automatically to all citizens, after which all of their income is taxable, with everyone paying the same rate for the same level of income.
Chris Padley
Market Rasen, Lincs