Dear Mr Brown

In response to the two new tax system options, my family and I have come to the conclusion regarding which of the two systems will benefit us most.

Firstly, we have chosen the VAT system to be developed to the public. The reasons for this are: the VAT system affects only our purchases; so we can choose what to sacrifice in our expenditure.The income tax system affects our direct income, which gives us no choice of how much we spend. Also, my husband earns only £10,000 per year. Therefore, according to the income tax system, he would not pay tax, whereas my £90,000 income would go down to £52,000 if the government were to impose the income tax system.

By calculation, the VAT tax system will only cost my family around £14,000 in tax per year compared to the £38,000 that the income tax system will cost us. Also, the income tax system is solely based on what you earn, and the richer people will suffer more because they will pay a higher percentage of their income in tax.

The VAT system does not affect my family as much as it could because we do not purchase cigarettes. However we purchase a large amount of alcohol and petrol. Even though the VAT system may cost us more than we already spend now, it will be a more efficient way for my family to pay tax; it will be payable via personal spending and therefore controlled by ourselves. It is more reliable, more efficient and fairer than the other system, because the VAT system is the same for everyone; it depends on how much you spend. If you wanted to cut down tax you could just cut down on luxury items; the basic daily needs of a family are not taxed, except petrol.

However you could argue that a fair tax system should not affect people's choices of what to buy, because this is what the VAT system does in effect, but an all-inclusive tax will eliminate all other taxes and hopefully not affect lives of people too much. But if the government is going to impose an all-inclusive tax, then the VAT system is the way to do it.

Yours sincerely

The team at Aylesford School and Language College, Warwick