Letters: Supermarket tax will right some wrongs

The irony is that the supermarkets caused the closure of so many high street shops in the first place, with the loss of uncounted hundreds and thousands of jobs, and now they claim that a tax would stop them from expanding further (Letters, 14 January). Their expansion can only lead to more net job losses.

All this is in addition to their dominance of our food chain. This was achieved by paying their suppliers six to eight weeks after the supplies are delivered, by which time you have paid for the things you purchased. The result is that Tesco, for example, has some 2 billion in the bank at any one time.

With this capital, obtained at suppliers' expense, they can expand, and they can bribe local councils by offering other benefits to the local community.

You are caught in a bind that it is difficult to get out of. At least a large tax is a method that is justified by their history. It might be a means to recreate local high street shops.

(Dr) Ulrich Loening

Ormiston

East Lothian

I was surprised that you gave space on your front page to the ridiculous claim by the Scottish Retail Consortium that supermarkets "create jobs" (13 January).

Building supermarkets creates some temporary jobs in the construction industry but once built, supermarkets destroy jobs. Every packet of cornflakes bought in a supermarket is a packet not sold in a smaller shop and because supermarkets are naturally more efficient in the use of labour the net result is a loss of jobs.

Or does the Retail Consortium believe that supermarkets actually make us eat more cornflakes? Of course not.

No surprise that the Retail Consortium and CBI Scotland moan about the proposed new tax on supermarkets.

They have to say what they're told to say by some of their big members. However, many of your readers may feel that in such hard times taking a bit more tax from hugely profitable supermarkets is preferable to taking more from - well, from where does The Scotsman suggest?

David McCarthy

Parks of Aldie

Kinross

The plan to put surcharges on superstores in Scotland is unsound and could seriously backfire on potential Scottish jobs at a time when jobs are desperately needed.

John Swinney, our finance minister, needs to reconsider this method of raising extra funding before plans for new stores in Scotland are mothballed as these major companies will not be slow to flex their considerable muscle and damage the job market.

Dennis Grattan

Mugiemoss Road

Aberdeen