Unfair tax rises

SIR – You report (November 4) that the Chancellor is considering raising taxes on dividend income and capital gains.

Dividend income is the main – and sometimes the only – source of income for the hundreds of thousands of formerly self-employed and now retired people who had no one paying into their pension funds, had to rely entirely on themselves to fund their retirements and never drew a single penny in social-security benefits.

These people, of whom I am one, have always been the backbone of the economy, keeping our country afloat and never leaning on the taxpayer for help. As for capital, it has always been necessary to accumulate enough to provide essential retirement income.

Does the Chancellor really think it would be fair to punish this group of people while continuing to provide more feather beds for those who have been formerly employed in government service and retired on taxpayer-funded, index-linked pensions?

Patrick Mountain

Somerton, Somerset

SIR – No doubt the Governor of the Bank of England must, as Ross Clark says (telegraph.co.uk, November 3), bear some of the blame for Britain’s economic peril.

Yet it is blame that must be shared by most other central banks. For example, the Australian Reserve Bank was, until a few months ago, assuring anxious investors that inflation would remain within its mandated 2-3 per cent, and interest rates at absurd, near-zero levels until 2024.

Most importantly, as Mr Clark reminds us, the poor policy-making of purportedly independent bankers can be traced back to the quantitative easing programmes that were continued for far too long after the 2008 financial crisis, resulting in dangerous asset investments while depleting the bank deposits of cautious savers.

John Kidd

Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia