(MONEY Magazine) – Your treatment of taxes in the January cover story may be an accurate reflection of the feelings of some citizens, but if that is so, then both you and they apparently think that taxes are a financial issue only and not a moral one. Yes, taxation must be fair -- and so the populace is rightly aggrieved at the tactics of the IRS and at needless waste and padding. But if most of us do not want the tax burden that is our lot, then we must first participate in a national debate in order to determine what our citizens deem worth paying for. The levying and spending of tax revenues should be the indication that our society works to do those jobs that none of us can do individually. To fight against taxes out of frustration rather than morality, to move to a different state only because of the tax rate and not over total quality of life is both immature and greedy.

Gail R. Patt Princeton, Mass.

I'm sitting with my blood boiling after reading your January article ''Fed Up and Fighting Back,'' which profiles Dan Brown. Despite his $70,000 home and $45,000-to $75,000-a-year stockbroker's job, he is trying to stop taxes that would raise Oklahoma teachers' salaries, ''which average $22,000 a year -- 48th in the nation.'' Many of us who understand and are willing to pay appropriate taxes for education have had to send our children to private schools in order to support academic excellence. It is always discouraging to read self-serving views that do nothing to help others. Molly Phinny Glen Arbor, Mich.

Dan Brown should be ashamed of himself. Until teachers can earn what a stockbroker does, we have upside-down values. Edward Black Lansdale, Pa.

Given our high school dropout rate and illiteracy rate, I'm amazed at Dan Brown's fight to stop teachers from being paid more. As I understand it, his state's plan to elevate teachers' salaries beyond 48th place nationally would require a tax increase amounting to just under 0.005% of his 1989 gross income -- yet represents for Mr. Brown the last straw. Richard DeBeau-Melting Minneapolis

In January's ''Is Your State a Haven or Hell?'', Ray and Jill Iorio say they plan to move to Florida in six years to escape high taxes in New Jersey. You point out, however, that Florida is a ''sure bet'' for a tax increase in the next few years. Taxes are like death. You can put it off, but it catches up with you. Now, moving away from New Jersey because of the awful weather -- that's another story! Faith Willis Brunswick, Ga.