Today our correspondents discuss land taxes, the Leuchars airshow traffic chaos, French turbines and the threat cats pose to wild birds.
Young lose out to property gamblers Sir, I fully support John Digney (September 13) in his call for tax reform.
The aims of the economic policy of any government should be to maximise the people’s standard of living, minimise their cost of living and minimise the cost of doing business.
These aims are not compatible with a tax system which encourages investment in property and discourages employment and enterprise.
High and increasing property prices indirectly lead to high costs of living and, therefore, of doing business.
The government relies on income tax, national insurance, VAT and corporation tax, but collects relatively little from the unearned income from increases in the price of property.
There would be no need to worry about the budget deficit or the provision of public services if the government collected a charge on the annual rental value of all land.
Present taxes could all be reduced or abolished and the provision of affordable houses become possible because the price of building land would fall. Every economist, including the leader of the SNP, should be questioning the oft-quoted statement that high and increasing house prices are good for the national economy and that income tax is charged according to ability to pay.
As a landowner and an employer, I realised a long time ago that both these statements are false.
A house should be a place to make a home, not a place to invest borrowed money in the hope of making unearned, tax-free capital gains, leaving many of the next generation with nowhere to live and out of work.
Duncan Pickard.Straiton Farm,Balmullo.
No ‘plane’ sailing to Fife air show
Sir, We were very pleased to read your reports during this week that Leuchars air show was a great success. But, for us, it was a day to be forgotten.
We bought advance tickets, plus a red ticket for car parking facilities. We arrived at 9.45am at Strawberry Fields car park only to be greeted by a lady police constable who told us the car park was not open at present and that, rather than wait in a long queue, we would be quicker to go back via Cupar. Cupar was jammed solid with traffic and this continued right along the main road leading to Leuchars.
By 12.55pm we had reached Dairsie and still hadn’t come across a car park. We decided to give up, after all, half the day was now gone.
I guess what upset us most was that, despite having a car park ticket displayed in our car, we were in traffic with folk who had obviously just made a last-minute decision to go to the show.
However, we did have a lovely day visiting all the little fishing towns of Fife. But it was not the day we had planned and paid for.
Hugh B. Ross.50 Kenmore Street,Aberfeldy.
Exporting opportunities
Sir, I read with interest that Scottish Power Renewables has awarded Alstom, the French engineering firm, a contract to supply 70 wind turbines to expand their wind farm at Whitelee, near Glasgow. Apparently this contract is worth some £164 million to this French company.
This Alstom deal, I understand, is for the manufacture, transportation, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance of these turbines.
According to their press statement, “This extension project (the 70 new turbines from France) will provide up to 200 jobs.”
Is there anyone who can enlighten me as to where the 200 jobs will be created, with the manufacture, transportation, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance being sourced from France?
Ian Milne.Netherton of Craigie,Craigiebarn Road,Dundee.
Cats threaten wild birds’ future
Sir, The blue tit population is reported to be in decline and data also suggests a decline in the broader population of birds. This does not surprise me, but what does is the reluctance to mention cats
There are 7.5 million cats in the UK. Of these, approximately 10% live permanently indoors leaving 6.75 million to stalk and kill birds.
Other research revealed 3383 birds were killed by 964 cats. This works out as more than three birds per cat. If we assume only five million cats kill three birds per year, this amounts to 15 million birds every year.
That many of these are raising young and the young die of starvation is yet another reason for cat owners to restrict their pets roving activities.
They kill for pleasure not food. Cat lovers restricting their cats’ outdoor adventures would save millions of birds.
It would also please the neighbours in whose gardens the cats foul.
Clark Cross.138 Springfield Road,Linlithgow.
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