Millennials might be having a tough time financially, but we should tax corporations to make up for this, not pensioners

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Elderly people shouldn't be forced to fork out more tax when they themselves are mostly struggling on insignificant pensions (Reuters)

Millennials are in a different economic climate to baby boomers, but the suggestion that we had it easy is wrong. This demonstrated by the belief that we all had our university fees paid, when in fact most of us did not go to university or even into further education. We left school at 15 or 16, got a job, not a career, and stated paying tax immediately. My salary in 1962 was £300 a year and I was taxed on it.

The big change is that then we all paid tax, individuals and businesses alike. This was on a sliding scale so the more you received the more you paid, unlike today where a whole industry has been created to avoid taxing rich individuals and companies, thus placing the financing of everything from hospitals to schools to the army firmly on the shoulders of ordinary people and small businesses.

This has been achieved by a shift away from income taxes to other forms of taxation such as VAT on goods and importantly on all services. This was not the case for my generation and, to help disguise this increase in taxes on individuals while cutting services, various scapegoats have been created such as immigrants, benefit scroungers, the EU and now baby boomers, all to hide what is actually happening. The rich are getting richer at the expense of you, me and small business.

No wonder the young cannot afford housing.

We should not be distracted by spurious arguments but be aware of the real reasons for inequalities between generations, which is an economy that has evolved to serve the interests of a tiny minority, and we should set about changing this.

John Simpson
Ross-on-Wye

The idea that pensioners who are working should be made to pay for our underfunded health service only goes to show how out of touch our politicians are. For those of us who are not in receipt of generous taxpayer-funded pensions and early retirement packages, like MPs, teachers, lecturers, police, armed forces, civil servants and so on, and who rely on the pathetic state pension or meagre savings related pensions, many have no option but to continue working well past their pension age.

Yet again the nasty party has decided that the poorest in society are to pay for their austerity policies. No question of taxing those individuals and companies who avoid most or all tax by using offshore accounts. At some point even they will realise that the oft-plucked low-hanging fruit no longer has any nutritional value and they may have to climb a little higher.

G Forward
Stirling

Data protection measures might hurt small charities

Like everyone else at present, I am being bombarded by requests to remain on companies’ and other organisations’ databases in order to comply with the new data protection regulations. I do my best to keep up while managing all the other digital bumpf that life brings.

At the same time, because I’m on the boards of two very small charities, I’m having to ensure that they are also compliant. Once that’s done, there is the threat of massive fines if it’s not managed properly thereafter.

I understand the worthy rationale behind it all – Facebook, Cambridge Analytica et al – but not only is this an additional burden on small organisations where the risk of abuse is small, but I fear that worthwhile causes will lose large chunks of their support base because many people won’t be bothered to reply.

Wouldn’t a numerical threshold have been a good idea? Take back control?

Patrick Cosgrove
Bucknell

Trump’s Iran intentions

I’m sorry to be this blunt about it, but Donald Trump has torn up the Iran accord for just two reasons:

* To satisfy a bunch of people who probably couldn’t find Iran on a map (even if their life depended on it); and

* To make sure there’s a bunch of people who will massage his ego

Yet again, he has demonstrated how unfit he is for the office of president.

Steve Mumby
Bournemouth

Scotland could have remained part of the EU

Martin Redfern (Letters, Tuesday) comments that the Scottish National Party and their leader Nicola Sturgeon would have taken Scotland out of the EU had they won the 2014 independence referendum. The fact that he uses this as a slight to the SNP is really quite ironic, given that Scotland’s departure would have been a by-product of independence from Westminster in Scotland’s attempt to “take back control”.

It is also perhaps ironic that had Scotland won its independence, it might well have been able to join the European Union as an independent country before the UK’s final full departure occurs. This possibility might have given rise to some very interesting cross-border dynamics in the dying days of Britain’s EU membership.

Martin’s reading of the current SNP attitude towards Brexit is one I do not share. He states his opinion of the SNP position to be that they want a very hard Brexit, to help sell independence to the electorate. An alternative view would be that, unlike Martin, the SNP has little or no confidence that a second Brexit referendum will happen, and even if it does, the chances of the decision being that the UK should simply remain a full member is, in his words, “slim to none”. This assumes of course that such an option were ever tabled (which seems even more unlikely).

So, what are Scottish nationalists (and, like me, Scots who care about Scotland’s future), to do?

The options seem clear. Either remain locked onto a UK currently being led like a lamb to slaughter on the altar of Brexit madness, or continue to campaign for its right as an independent nation to seek a different path.

David Curran
Feltham

BFFs

Theresa May, the PM, has repeatedly said she has full confidence in her foreign secretary’s support, but he keeps letting her down.

As Oscar Wilde once said: “A true friend stabs you in the front.”

Robert D Dangoor
London SW7