MR ATKINS?s letter (February 5), commenting on the stand taken by Councillor Mathew and council tax, raised a point which is by far the most sensible pronouncement on the subject I have yet seen,

The way in which councils are financed is about the least fair and accountable that could be devised. Virtually every service provided by councils is consumed by (or imposed on) people, not houses.

Whether a house is big or small, band A or band G, tells you nothing about how many people are receivers of services or what their individual or joint abilities to pay are.

The demand for an infinitely (upwardly) variable annual tax based on the unproven and speculative value of an occupier?s home is a bizarre way of raising money, and is now seen as grossly unfair.

The suggestion that a local income tax should replace the property tax is also flawed. It has a certain attraction in that everyone with taxable income would be contributing rather than just the actual occupier, and hence the demand per person would be smaller.

However, apart from adding to the already huge complexity and confusion affecting the present income tax system, just imagine the emergence of tax migration that would occur say between a high tax Devon and a low tax Dorset (choose any other two tax-differentiated counties you like). The better off move and take their higher rated income with them, leaving the lower payers to foot the exorbitant bill.

The only way forward is to take the element that is implied in the local income tax proposal that every adult earner would contribute, set a sensible and properly controlled rate per head of the resident population and provide for the reduction or remission of payment to those who were provably unable to afford the charge or should otherwise be exempt.

This might have the significant advantage that if every individual realised that it was his or her money the council were so keen to spend, many more people would turn out and vote at elections, and maybe also turn out those councillors who so eagerly spend ? and waste ? our money.

Geoffrey M Stowell

The Laurels

The Down

Bere Alston

REGARDING the criticism directed at Councillor Mrs Alison Clish-Green and myself for supporting the principle that council tax should be raised for second homes (D Atkins, Letters, February 5), may I point out the following:

This is a low income area; thus, clearly when those affluent incomers invest in a second home in West Devon, the effect is to force property prices ? even for the most modest houses ? beyond the reach, financially, of numerous local people. In consequence many ? especially the young, the ?seed corn? of any community, are forced to leave the area, often never to return

So the houses in which they would live permanently are often now occupied by folk for just a handful of weeks every year, their contribution to the local economy, and community, being negligible.

Thus, the local post office or shop, or even pub, closes because there are insufficient people on a regular basis to keep them in business; jobs are lost whilst villages stagnate, indeed, sometimes virtually die in terms of commerce, community involvement and social interaction.

The comments of Mr Atkins that such views as we expressed are ?envious sniping?, offend, for the issue is nothing to do with envy, Rather, they concern fairness, or at least a small movement towards it in that second home owners will not be subsidised by local council tax payers in the future as they have in the past.

Cllr Ted Sherrell

Tavistock Town and West Devon Borough Councils