Where will the push for tax ‘transparency’ end?

SIR – In publishing his tax return (report, April 12), David Cameron has created a precedent for prime ministers and Cabinet colleagues. Where will this stop? Will the tax returns of all citizens soon be open for the public to see?

I do not have the right to see information regarding anyone’s income or private affairs. The only business that politicians and public officials should have to declare is their interests, so that they do not create policy which benefits them personally.

James A Paton

Billericay, Essex

SIR – Surely what we need to know is what has not been included in tax returns.

Henry Tyrrell

Emsworth, Hampshire

SIR – My mother scrimped and saved so that she would not be a liability should she face life in a nursing home. Without these savings she would have been dependent on the state.

As it happened, she died without needing the savings, and they put her finances above the inheritance tax threshold. The Treasury consequently took 40 per cent of that carefully gathered money into its own coffers.

Why is it considered such a crime to have savings?

Felicity Pinder

Salisbury, Wiltshire

SIR – It has always seemed to me that inheritance tax is one of the least damaging ways for the Government to raise money.

The deceased person doesn’t miss the money, and the person inheriting has done nothing to deserve it. Without the tax, the inheritor could end up living off the inheritance instead of getting stuck in and contributing to the wealth of the nation.

Of its main alternatives, income tax is a deterrent to hard work and enterprise, and VAT pushes up prices for everyone, including those on the lowest incomes.

Christopher Paine

Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire

SIR – It does not seem to have occurred to those advocating a tightening-up of inheritance tax that the more draconian your tax policy, the more you encourage aggressive tax planning.

Harry Katz

Stanmore, Middlesex