Paying more for pensions is an economic necessity; however, unfairness among GPs will breed resentment (GP, 28 September).
Contrast the old-style menage of a child rearer and a single, usually male, GP spouse earning £120,000 with a family, in which two GP parents each work reduced hours and earn £60,000.
Equal work for equal pay? Well, not exactly. The first household pays more tax under individual taxation. Furthermore this disadvantage is perpetuated into retirement when the higher rate is avoided by the second partnership.
So which family should contribute more generously in the Andrew-Dearden-endorsed brave new world? Family one pays £10,200 while family two pays £7,800.
No doubt this little whine from a dinosaur will prove unnecessary as unfairness is assiduously detected and exposed by a small section of my female colleagues. Might I disgracefully suggest that many of these are likely to benefit from the lighter pro rata burden described? If true, they will already be opining, more eloquently than I, that discrimination must be stamped out and that they demand the obligation to pay their fair share.
Dr John Stevenson, Stevenage, Hertfordshire.
