DURING recent weeks several readers have advocated abolishing the council tax in favour of a local income tax to reflect the ability to pay.

I wonder if any of these people have thought the argument through and formulated an opinion as to what is meant by "ability to pay".

Pensioners no longer incur the costs of raising children, those owning their own homes probably no longer pay mortgage repayments and, from age 65, national insurance contributions are no longer deducted from income.

Compare this with a working family with children and a large mortgage (those lucky enough to get on the housing ladder, that is).

The more the working family earns the more they already pay in income tax and national insurance before having to meet the cost of children and mortgage repayments.

Since Labour came to power in 1997 they have introduced more 60 new taxes, removed the married man's allowance and subjected pensioners to derisory increases in their pensions which have not reflected the true cost of living increases.

The way to address this is to give pensioners a proper increase in their income - not penalise hard-working families with yet another tax.

Tony Taylor,

Grassholme,

Woodthorpe, York.

Updated: 10:54 Wednesday, March 17, 2004