Madam, - PD leader Michael McDowell justifies taxing single-income married couples by up to an extra €6,240 a year compared with double-income couples on the basis that the latter have extra expenses for childcare, apparently oblivious that this extra benefit accrues to double-income couples whether or not they have children.
It also seems to have escaped his attention that a double-income couple has, in fact, two incomes, whereas the single income pair have foregone that privilege in order to rear their families themselves.
A tax policy of transferring huge sums of earned income from families with children to double-income couples, whether or not they have dependants, amounts to daylight robbery, and cannot be justified. - Yours, etc,
ANNE CAHILL,
Laurel Park,
Dublin 22.