To the Editor:

In response to the letter in the July 19 issue of TCT, titled “Taxes are a necessary good,” submitted by Orion Breen, I have one simple question for the letter writer, so bear with me.

If I decide to bring neighbors to the grocery store and they pay me, I have created income and must claim it as such when I file my income taxes. But if I join Hour Exchange Portland, of which Breen is a contributing member, I could provide the same services and never pay any income taxes. And if I needed assistance of another kind, it’s possible someone else would provide those and not pay income tax.

In both cases, we might also avoid sales taxes if the situation would normally allow for those to be collected under current law. Breen speaks to the good of collecting taxes while at the same time supporting and utilizing an organization that by its very nature has found a loophole around paying sales and income tax on services provided to others.

So my question is: Who really is the hypocrite here? Perhaps Breen could share with the readers how many “free” services you received that you did not have to pay the “neccesary good” of taxes on?

Robert Reed

Lewiston