Wealth tax
Sir: Mr Patrick Cormack, MP, expresses. the hope in his article "Heritage in Danger" (March 29) "that whoever is caught by the Capital Transfer Tax and the Wealth Tax, it is not the nation."
I would like to add that so far as those art and antique dealers in this country who care are concerned, the inevitable consequence of CTT would be the eventual demise of virtually all of the very many family firms of relatively small size, sometimes going back as much as six generations and including those which have become household names at home and abroad. And this, by breaking the backbone of our art trade, would lead inexorably to London losing its uniquely pre-eminent position as centre of the world's market in works of art.
The main practical objection to applying a wealth tax to works of art is the insidious threat that owners themselves will be required to value their own objects each year in their tax returns! In this regard one cannot emphasise too often that the necessary expertise to undertake such a task just does not exist.
George J. Levy President of the British Antique Dealers' Association, 20 Rutland Gate, London SW7
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