MAY I hope that all Bournemouth councillors will study carefully the report – Implementation of the Government’s Local Council Tax Reduction Scheme – to be submitted to the cabinet on Wednesday by the leader of the Council, Cllr John Beesley?

Council tax is a very unfair form of taxation, being highly regressive in its implementation – collecting a higher percentage of a lower income than it does for a higher income, but all that is about to get worse as the government transfers to local councils responsibility for assisting those households deemed too poor to meet their council tax bill.

The report being submitted to the council is long and detailed, but perhaps just one quote from it will indicate the concern that many people will have – “the introduction of LGTRS (Local Government Tax Reduction Scheme) requiring working age customers to pay at least some of their council tax may cause hardship for those who have no immediate means of increasing their income”.

I hope all councillors will search their consciences before they impose yet another financial burden upon those already at the bottom end of the income scale.

The poll tax played a significant part in destroying a former Conservative government.

This complicated reform may well play a similar role in destroying the present coalition government.

Council tax at the best of times is widely regarded as an unfair tax, but to make it even unfairer at a time of high unemployment and shrinking incomes smacks of a total disregard for the ‘One Nation’ society advocated by Benjamin Disraeli (a former Conservative Prime Minister!).

GORDON CANN, Craigmoor Avenue, Bournemouth