We agree with the letter from Mary Abbott, president of the Pennsylvania Earned Income Tax Officers, Administrators and Collectors Association, ("Keep Tax Collection Local," Feb. 12) that Pennsylvania must improve the collection process for municipal and school district earned income taxes.

The Pennsylvania Economy League of Southwestern Pennsylvania, an affiliate of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, has more than 70 years of experience performing public sector analyses throughout Pennsylvania. The Department of Community and Economic Development recently asked the Economy League to estimate the amount of tax dollars lost to municipalities and school districts annually across the commonwealth as a result of the fragmented and inefficient system in place to collect earned income taxes.

The Economy League estimated that $237 million of potential tax revenue is lost each year -- enough to hire 3,000 more police officers and 3,000 more teachers without increasing taxes. Conservative assumptions were used in each step of our analysis. While we continue to fine-tune our estimate, the technical refinements referenced by Ms. Abbott are unlikely to change the estimate substantially. We consulted with a group of earned income tax collectors and municipal management officials, and they confirmed that the Economy League's methodology was sound.

The current fragmented, inefficient process of collecting earned income taxes is wasteful; municipal and school district taxpayers lose out-year after year. Legislation to consolidate the collection of earned income taxes has been proposed in the House and Senate. This legislation will halt wastefulness, be fairer to taxpayers and improve financial stability in local government.

BRIAN K. JENSEN, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President
Allegheny Conference on Community Development and Pennsylvania Economy League of Southwestern Pennsylvania

I read your article about furniture advertising Feb. 3 with great interest. I can tell you exactly why people would rather buy expensive handbags than furniture. Most sofas are lousy -- they're poorly made and uncomfortable (and if not they are extremely expensive).

A couple of years ago my husband and I started considering replacing our 15-year-old two-piece sofa because it was more or less falling apart (originally bought at Sears). I trailed around pretty much every furniture store in the North Hills, and quickly came to the conclusion that unless you're built like Abraham Lincoln, sofas (and chairs) are mostly designed for looks, not for people to actually sit on.

The only place where I could find shallower seat depths at all were Quality/Thomasville and Stickley-Audi! Every place else (cheap or expensive) had very deep seats and squishy backs (or backs that reclined whether you wanted to or not).

After looking in about 15 stores, we had found one settee, one office chair and a couple of completely unaffordable pieces.

We still have the other half of the old sofa (it had a pull-out bed, so it wasn't "quite" as dilapidated as the part we replaced).

If Roomful Express thinks that ads with talking furniture will sell sofas, more power to them. It just won't work on people like me.

RUTH MORRISSON,
Bellevue

Your article on the Macy's stores trimming 2,300 jobs was an interesting article about the company trying to find out what people want to shop for in Pittsburgh and other areas of the country. With a captive audience as it has in Pittsburgh with no other department stores to shop in, why would it use the St. Louis people to dictate the fashions for this area?

We are closer to New York, and given the chance can be just as sophisticated as the New York shopper. I often wondered why I would see the Macy's advertisements in the New York Times and wonder why we don't have that opportunity to purchase these goods.

If you give quality and style, people will come. I'm hoping that things will change when we get the Nordstrom store.

BETTY ELIAS
O'Hara

In response to the Feb. 7 article about the pending liquidation of Don Allen Auto City -- "Is Auto Dealer's Closure Part of Trend Away From Cities?" -- let me suggest that the answer is "no," and for a different reason than the suburban competition cited.

Previous Post-Gazette coverage suggests that redevelopment of the site is contingent upon substantial public funding and that the prospect of obtaining that funding is at least part of the reason that this business, which employs 80, is seen by its owners as worth more dead than alive.

Ironically, the real trend seems to be disinvestment funded by the city itself. My own experience, in addition to being a Don Allen customer, is as a former customer of Rollier's Hardware in Shadyside and the Centre Avenue Giant Eagle in North Oakland. In each case, the city itself has driven at least some of the nails into the coffins of these businesses by funding their competition. Another irony is that these were businesses that I patronized precisely because I was able to get to them on foot; so much for the "greening" of the city!

For the above reasons, it would seem that the best thing that the city of Pittsburgh could do to preserve the type of high-value, skilled jobs that Don Allen represented would be to eliminate its own Urban Redevelopment Authority and let the marketplace decide which businesses should survive.

HENRY POSNER III,
Oakland

UPMC is the premier medical center in the area. However, its new war against PhRMA and drug company representatives has far reaching consequences for the patients caught in the crossfire. UPMC is already not meeting the needs of the uninsured and underinsured.

It does offer a Charity Care program through the Falk Clinic Pharmacy, which is drug cost plus 5 percent, for a maximum 30-day supply at a time. A pharmacy representative will provide assistance with filling out forms and obtaining medications from the drug company indigent programs for patients, but is not responsible for any delays or denials, nor does the pharmacy provide meds in the interim. Falk Pharmacy is the sole source of limited samples for UPMC.

UPMC needs to respect that true professionals already practice in an ethical manner. PhRMA and the drug reps are not evil; they are doing their best to educate physicians and help needy patients.

TAMARA LYNN WARDELL, RN,
McKees Rocks