Going through the roof over house tax

The Social Market Foundation's proposals are deeply flawed (Study calls for tax on house profits, June 23). They would lead to a housing market collapse of the kind the thinktank says it is trying to avoid.

It would be a regressive tax, hitting the poor harder than those whose earnings have risen. Second-time buyers who have higher earnings will find the tax easier to pay, whereas those who have relatively lower earnings will find obtaining a mortgage on a new house that much more expensive.

It would also mean fewer people who are at retirement age, or whose children have left home, selling larger properties for smaller ones to cash in on their equity, thus freeing up larger family houses. It would only add to the pensions crisis for those retiring now and in the future.

Mark Hellen
London

· The Social Market Foundation rightly identifies house price profits as a pivotal factor in social injustice. The unmoderated property market provides the clearest example of the causal link between possession and dispossession - of how those who have benefit at the direct expense of those who don't. This issue, more than "fat cat" pay, will be the true test of Blair's pretensions of social justice.

David Thompson
Sheffield

· Proposals to levy capital gains tax on increases in property values are not an overreaction to the situation where the property market has been running our economy for decades. However, this tax will stop some people moving house. Better the old land value tax, levied continuously on all types of landed property, domestic, commercial and agricultural.

DBC Reed
Northampton

· According to the Social Market Foundation I should pay a 40% tax on any profits when I sell my house. I bought my house for £5,000 in 1968. Its current value is £220,000. Selling it, I would pay £86,000 in tax. This would leave me unable to buy a property in the area. First, this would not encourage me to sell. Second, are there any more geniuses out there?

Tom Swallow
Kenilworth, Warwickshire