The present loud-mouthed outrage against inheritance tax, as a valid, honourable and completely ethical method to support the duties of the state to serve the people, does suggest a failure in our school system to teach the value of logic in human life.

One vigorous objection, is that this money being inherited has already been taxed, and so should not be taxed for the second time, as the heir receives it.

It is quite true that the money was taxed when it was part of the income of the first person, but that fact has no bearing whatever upon the event now, when this money now is becoming the income of a completely different person, the heir.

You cannot possibly pretend that these two persons are actually the same one person.

One person is now dead and the other still alive.

It would be tax evasion for the second person to avoid paying the proper tax on his income.

Taxes are levied, for the most honourable of all purposes, to serve the community, on the income of every person who receives the money, and each person who so benefits, should be pleased and proud, in his own good fortune, to make a contribution to the common good.

It appears that this last part, any concern to serve the community, is missing today, because self has blinded the mind.

Civilised thinking is under attack.

Neville Westerman

Brynna