Sir, - I am going to stick my neck out in support of the proposals to give additional tax-free allowances to double-income families.
A couple, only one of whom works outside the home earning £36,000 a year, is in a vastly different position to a couple, both of whom work outside the home earning £18,000 each. Yet under the existing system both are paying the same amount of tax. In the case of the second family, no recognition has been given to the fact that it has taken the labour of two people instead of one, to earn that money, to the additional expenses which the two-income family have had to pay to earn it (e.g. childcare, travel, clothing), or to the additional stress on that couple in having to juggle work, family and housework. In many instances, they cannot afford the luxury of one of them remaining at home. Such couples have been discriminated against in the past and the current Budget goes a small way towards redressing the imbalance.
Much has been made of the fact that a double-income family may not have children or may have grown-up children. Yet, under the current system, the single-income family, with no children to support, is entitled to the same tax-free allowances as a double income family with young children. - Yours, etc.,
Judith O'Lochlainn, Cruachan Park, Rahoon, Galway.