Those Taxing Taxes

In his Nov. 6 column, “Promises of No New Taxes Have a Hollow Ring,” the usually erudite and informed James Flanigan was way off track when he wrote that a national value-added tax is “an idea worthy of consideration.” Widely used in Europe, value-added taxes have contributed greatly to lowering the standard of living.

Such regressive consumer taxes do much more than gouge the lower- and middle-income classes. They so restrict the consumer’s available purchases as to have a destructive effect on manufacturing and production.

It is ironic that directly below the end of the Flanigan column was a large ad that read, “Become a Wealthy Real Estate Speculator! Anyone can build real estate holdings and create wealth, quickly and easily by becoming a real estate speculator.”

A more rational new source of revenue than the value-added tax would seem to be a national tax on land values. This would force the foreign corporations to return to America a portion of the wealth they have “created” through land speculation.

STANLEY M. SAPIRO

Malibu