UKC

Today's monarchy related topic is tax as prompted by this Sky News article, since Charlie is having a well deserved day-off today..

https://news.sky.com/story/why-king-charles-wont-have-to-pay-inheritance-ta...

"His Majesty automatically inherited the estate - worth over £652m - following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II last week."

"Under UK law, inheritance tax is paid at 40% if you leave assets valued above a certain threshold to your loved ones after you die."

"But the King will not have to pay the levy because of a rule introduced by the UK government in 1993, which said inheritance tax does not have to be paid on the transfer of assets from one sovereign to another."

"The Duchy of Lancaster estate generated revenue of £24m and had assets worth more than £650m at the end of March this year, according to its financial records."

"The monarch is not legally obliged to pay any tax in the UK. But the Queen began to pay income and capital gains tax on a voluntary basis in 1993, and King Charles is expected to do the same."

Anyone other than King Charles who has inherited private assets from the Queen will have to pay inheritance tax.

How about a windfall tax on Monarchy to help support energy bills?

Excellent idea, but they should pay the tax in any case.

If Revenue and Customs is willing to discretely collect that over several payments as cash stuffed in Harrods bags, maybe the King could make a contribution to demonstrate all tax issues are above board and done correctly.

a) If you have a monarchy, it needs significant wealth to be monarchical.  It's inherent in the concept. I understand you may think the whole concept is a bad idea but you can hardly be surprised at these arrangements?

b) While it's true Charles won't  pay inheritance tax and others do in principle, in reality the IHT paid by the very wealthy (particularly land owners) is small, due to all sorts of loopholes, so the practical difference is small.

The Guardian had a slightly more balance article pointing out if I remember correclty that the Duchy of Lancasters profits go back into the cost of running the monarchy ( if you like a windfall tax) . So its  possibly a bit more nuanced and complicated than portrayed.

Having recently walked round Windsor Park which is financed this way I do consider the money should perhaps be better spent in other parks of the country which are desprate for cash.

I wasn't this one I don't think: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/15/king-charles-billiona...

No ..as that is just an opinion piece.

I thought Windsor Park is owned and run by the Crown estate?

There are several monarchies in Europe who don't have the 'significant wealth' of our monarch. These are well functioning countries. The 'concept' of the monarchy has evolved, it's obviously not a fixed thing, and the reasons they needed wealth in olde times (so they could raise an army), obviously doesn't apply now.

Why?

Not quite but they are pretty wealthy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_royalty_by_net_worth

Because otherwise they are just another person. The whole point is they are distinct. Wealth isn't the only aspect, of course.

Your right, corrected, still annoyed me at the time that I thought that other parks in citys elsewhere beign deprived of money.

Surely they are distinct by virtue of being royal? Isn't that the whole point of being royal? 

Seems to be a problem with that list eg

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/25/spanish-royal-palace-unveils-...

This seems better researched

https://www.brusselstimes.com/61085/belgiums-king-philippe-is-europes-poore...

So back to the point, several European countries (including the Scandanavias) have monarchies with significantly less wealth than ours. These are stable countries, so again, why do they 'need' vast wealth.

So the "poorest" is a multimillion still? It seems a feature of monarchy to me

I'd distinguish monarchy from royal but regardless, I don't think a king living in a terrace on 15k/yr would appear very regal.

Have you read Sue Townsend's The Queen and I...?

And our monarchy would still much wealthier than them if they did pay inheritance tax. 

I'll take it as an admission that when you said 'need' to be wealthy, you meant several millions not several hundreds of millions..... and we can tax ours at 40%.

Indeed. If without inherited wealth and privilege the monarchy are indistinguishable from anyone else- are we saying that the royal bloodline and birthright is just an arbitrary illusion? Surely not!

I don't think many would dispute that.

I wouldn't put a number on it. My basic point is if you want to treat royals and the monarchy like everyone else, you no longer have the royals and monarchy.  That may be what you want, fine, but I think it is misleading to imply you can have a monarchy and have its members treated the same as everyone else - it's a contradiction. 

They are already significantly wealthy and so should pay tax like everyone (or avoid it the rich), they currently get 25% of the Crown Estate profits, though of course if the profits dip the amount they get doesn't.  According to some reports old Charlie want even more than the 25%.

I agree with MG, once you try and bring fairness into the issue then you’re on a slippery slope to no monarchy, the whole point is that it is unfair and changing tax rules does not alter that. 
That said I don’t think the monarchy will survive in its present form but it won’t be liberal republicans that bring about its demise but all the emotionally incontinent royalists queueing to ogle the Queen’s corpse. They’re now very invested in the monarchy, they think it belongs to them and are at fever pitch but where’s that energy going to go now? It won’t be transferred to Charlie but will transform into criticism of him because he’s not like Liz, he’s doing it wrong, he’s married to Camilla etc. Half the right wing commentators have been writing hit pieces about him for years but it’s only a temporary cessation of hostilities. 
The rest of us will continue to shrug and carry on leaving the royalists to tear Charles, and hence the monarchy, apart. 

So the only options are the immense wealth of our current royal family and a king living in a terrace on £15k a year? I can't help thinking there might be some middle ground. 

How many palaces and houses dotted around the country would you consider to the minimum required for a royal family to be truly royal? 

That middle ground is already well served by the ambassadors to various countries who are well looked after, live fairly lavishly and are reasonably well remunerated.  If you want someone held in reverence by the plebs and has heads of state flying around the world to me you need to take it up a notch!

At the very least your going to need two, does that suddenly make things equitable?

Or a Windfall Tax on tourism and kitsch trinkets sold to the influx of people this week around London?

Why would you single out a family, all be it privileged, to tax them for energy bills when it's the Energy companies making obscene profits?

Maybe a Windfall Tax on the whole of Scotland for having so much oil?

I get the sentiment - it's fair ...  but surely the underlying question is really: "is the British Monarchy good or bad value for money?".  You can argue they pay this tax, or they should not get that handout .. but I think it's kinda missing the bigger point which is:  Does the UK public net off positively or negatively by maintaining a royal family?  I am no royalist - if we net off negatively ... then who cares whether they pay a particular tax or not - get rid of them.  However I am no vote for biting off our nose to spite our face.  If the royal family is a net positive contributor to UK PLC .. then I vote keep em!

Given their wealth .. I would like to see the contribution we make to their annual keep to be removed.  Surely they are now self sustaining.  (And if they are not .. then steps should be taken to make them self sustaining)

Here is what I was able to find in a quick google.  If this accurate .. then they are significant net contributor to UK PLC.

https://brandirectory.com/download-report/bf_monarchy_report_2017.pdf

ANNUAL CONTRIBUTION (£ Millions)

CROWN ESTATE SURPLUS  328.8

ROYAL WARRANTS  193.3

COATS OF ARMS  19.3

TOURISM  550

TRADE  150

MEDIA INDUSTRY AND ARTS  50

ROYAL PATRONAGE  150

INFORMAL ENDORSEMENTS  200

GLOBAL PRESS COVERAGE  125

TOTAL CONTRIBUTION  1,766.40

ANNUAL COST (£ Millions)

SOVEREIGN GRANT  -42.8

ANNUITY OF THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH  -0.4

DUCHY OF LANCASTER LOST CAPITAL INCOME  -24

DUCHY OF LANCASTER LOST REVENUE INCOME  -19.1

DUCHY OF CORNWALL LOST CAPITAL INCOME  -20.5

DUCHY OF CORNWALL LOST REVENUE INCOME  -16.6

ROYAL COLLECTION NET SURPLUS  -2.6

SECURITY  -106

STATE BUILDINGS USED BY THE ROYAL FAMILY  -30

COSTS MET BY LOCAL COUNCILS  -22.2

COSTS MET BY THE UK GOVERNMENT  -3.8

ROYAL HOUSEHOLD PENSION SCHEME  -2.3

COST OF LORD LIEUTENANTS  -2.2

LEGAL COSTS TO MAINTAIN ROYAL SECRECY  -0.2

TOTAL COS  -292.6

That doesn't make sense. Any oil in Scottish waters is owned by oil companies. The Scottish Government makes money out of this from taxation. - Income tax and National Insurance paid by oil workers living in Scotland, Corporation Tax on profits made by oil companies from oil from Scottish waters, oil fuel duty paid by people buying petrol and diesel in Scotland, and other taxes. Some of these taxes are collected by the Scottish Government and others are collected by the UK Government. It is too complicated to go into the various details and arguments over this. - Many supporters of Scottish independence argue that Scotland does not get its fair share of taxes generated by oil in Scottish waters.  However, a windfall tax on Scotland for oil in Scottish waters would be a tax on taxes which would be absurd.

Imagine how many tourists would pay to visit Buckingham Palace were it to be open to the public?

Every estimation I've ever read about how much value the Royal Family attracts in tourism has conveniently omitted the alternative, which is that virtually all of the tourists would still come, and possibly more so if royal residences were no longer behind closed gates.

And a tax on the Royal Family for a windfall to help with the Fuel Crisis isn't?

Tax the Scottish I say, because.

Since you mention profits from energy. You do realise the royal family are joining in that profit with the crown estate owning the seabed so cashing in on all those offshore windfarms. Also for oil and gas pipelines and possibly some of the platforms but they are shy talking about those for some reason.

Dont worry though about the risk of a drop in energy prices resulting in less cash for the royals. Unlike the companies its designed so the payout can only go up.

It is open annually for a limited season.

Your profile says you are aged 10. Perhaps that explains this statement.

Which is really my point. Part of it is open for part of the year. Which means that for most of the year it's generating no income at all.

I don't disagree with your point but you know what a pedant I am 😀

https://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/event/27250576-buckingham-palace-t...

Yes, we've had that already. But as an incidental observation, that link opens a page with a cookie acceptance pop-up (as do most nowadays.) But on this one - uniquely in my recent experience - the optional cookie settings are all defaulted to yes, whereas I thought the law required them to be defaulted to no. Is this in breach of GDPR, am I mistaken, or is there some exception I'm not aware of?

It's a bit depressing to see so much effort and chicanery being put into justifying why it's actually OK for inheritance tax to be avoided here. 

I would actually be a bit more persuaded to believe in the 'noble, benevolent and gracious' nature of the Royal family if Charles said something like "although I'm not legally obliged to pay this tax, I am nevertheless going to make an equivalent donation to charity because I already have more money than I could possibly soend in a hundred lifetimes, and think its unfair to keep even more whilst my subjects starve and freeze ". 

But I can't see it. 

I think some people are so invested in royalism, they actually cannot accept how morally repugnant these affairs are and need to pretend that they're actually OK. Monarchs need to be wealthy because they're monarchs. Duck me. Mental. 

If the monarchy wasn't exempt from inheritance tax, then like other super-wealthy landowners, it'd be in trusts or some other arrangement to avoid significant taxation.

But I agree in principle, they should have the same taxation rules and then if necessary we could complain about the tax arrangements of the rich.

Does zero IHT only apply to assets from Elizabeth to Charles? Or is stuff that goes to others, eg Anne also exempt?

And it is gobsmacking that the Prince of Lichtenstein heads the European list!!!

No idea, 'visitLondon' website sounds like it's Sadiq Khan's remit. 

Very fair.  So I think the point you are making is that the existence of the British Royal Family is already a massive Net contributor to UK PLC (Or you disagree with that?) ... but you would like see it sweated a little harder still by adding walking tour round Buckingham Palace.  Right?

I mean yeah .. I agree.  A walking tour would maybe net a little more money.  I'm not sure that it's a game changer but I can't disagree that Buckingham Palace being more regularly open the public might be a good thing.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/373081/uk-royal-tourism-admission-numbe...

Anything can always be improved but 600,000/yr visitors pre covid suggests the doors are open some of the time. 

Here is the problem ... its super easy to say what you've just said ... and no one is going to disagree with you.  The problem is that in the real world - family's with means have a choice:  Organize their affairs tax efficiently or pay inheritance tax or, in the case of the Monarchy, get a law written that exempts of them from IHT.

We absolutely could rescind the law that exempts the Monarch from paying Inheritance Tax - of course we could - and I would support you in doing so (Looks far too much like one rule for them and another rule for us plebs).  But then the Monarchy could put their assets in a trust ... and then they would still pay no Inheritance Tax.  If your objective is to get the Monarchy to pay some form of IHT then simply removing this law is unlikely to solve that problem.

IHT is inherently unfair - it is, IMO, the source of a large % of the inequality in our world.  But resolving the situation, for anyone who has given it little more than superficial thought, is much harder that most people want to let on.  We absolutely could legislate to make more estates, including the monarchy, subject to IHT laws - that is something we could do tmw.  But we need to know that everyone newly subject to that revised IHT will not simply stand still and chap happy to pay more tax.  Any change to the IHT laws will drive a change in behavior too.  

The exact same thing is true of wealth taxes.  We could introduce point in time wealth taxes and tax everyone with assets, say, in excess of 1M (IHT is a wealth tax anyway).  There is a reason though why we tax income and not wealth and there is a reason why almost every EU nation has tried and abandoned wealth taxes in the last 100 years.  Why?  Because while they might be welcome to the electorate .. they reduce the overall taxation take because they drive assets out of the country and beyond the reach of the tax man.

Here is a good example:  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tax/macron-fights-president-of-th...

France ditched their wealth tax back in 2017.  Why?  Because the French millionaires started moving their assets en mass over the border into Belgium to the tune of 35 billion EURO's that left France.  The French overall tax take was falling, meaning they had less Euro's to redistribute across the population, because of their wealth tax was driving assets out of the country.

The taxation objective of any government should not be to put in place populist taxes.  Instead the taxation objective of any government should be to maximize the tax take it can extract from a population, for the purposes of redistribution, while remaining in power.  Too much tax without public services and they'll be voted out ... too little public services and they'll be voted out.  Actively enacting policies that decrease the tax take and therefore decrease their ability to deliver public services ... is liable to see them voted out.

If we want to fix the NHS ... we need policies that maximize the tax take - not policies that drive assets out of the country.

And a comparable figure of nearly 20 million for the Palace of Versailles indicates the scale of potential revenue were they to be open all of the time. It doesn't appear that French tourism to such a Royal historic building is in any way dependent on France having a current monarch; quite the reverse.

Sadly, I completely agree. But imagine the precedent it would set if Charles actually went ahead and said that. "this is a bit shady, and a bit morally shit, I have more money than god right so I'm going to pay that tax anyway". I might even start respecting him for a bit 😂

In this calculation you conveniently omit that pretty much all the income would still exist (the crown estate is publicly owned) but the cost would reduce significantly if the monarchy was reduced/abolished. 

I agree with you but all you are really saying is racing rich people is hard, which is true, but before we get down to the detail we need to establish the principle that we want to tax rich people more. Sadly that’s not been established and it is certainly not the principle of this govt and institutions. 

I didn't conveniently omit anything.  I copied verbatim from a website I said I found in a google search (which I told you I was doing), quoted you the source so that you could look at it yourself and caveated that I don't know if it's accurate or not.   What more do you want me to do?  

So in summary ... cake and eat it - right?  We can have all the financial benefits that the royal family brings to the UK without a royal family to bring it here?  That a fair summary of your position?

I was honestly unaware that monarchists would not accept the monarch as genuine unless they get massive tax breaks. As a non-monarchist I will have to take your word for it. I'm curious if this is the feeling of most monarchists.

All the while you are telling us that we need this as a vital part of our unwritten constitution..... while we're looking out at countries who do perfectly well without.

I'm not sure about fees, I'm of the thinking museums, state owned buildings, anything remotely educational (history, sciences, arts, government...) should be run at cost to cover decent staff pay, building maintenance and so on, plus free for under 21yr olds.

If people were better educated it might help the nay sayers with covid vaccine, brexit etc..

I appreciate this is a digression away from your point. It's potentially easier security wise to fully open Versaille, given the absence of any royals. I think they could do more, if Windsor has 3 times the visitors as Buckingham Palace. 

Good post. However I wonder what they do in the Nordic countries on inherited wealth.The issue there of course is that their economies etc are not the size of Frane, UK , Germany etc, so sometimes difficult in comparison.

Absolutely. The crown estate belongs to the country, not the monarch. Therefore, we can remove the monarch (and associated costs) and keep the crown estate. Am I missing something?

No - I agree 100% that we need to be more redistributive which means taking more off the rich to share out more equally with everyone else.  With you on that one all the way.

What I am saying is that wealth taxes specifically (of which IHT is a tax on accrued wealth over your life time) are not an effective way to do that redistribution and have been proven repeatedly to not work as one might expect.  In addition - I am also saying is that , historically, wealth taxes have often had the very opposite effect that they set out to have ... i.e. that they actually lowered the overall tax base, hence lowering take tax and lowering the opportunity for redistribution.  

The objective should not be to introduce a specific style of taxation.  The objective should be introduce the style of taxation that maximizes the tax base and therefore maximizes the opportunity for redistribution.  

Happy to support, largely, any style of taxation that maximizes the opportunity for redistribution.  

(Note:  If we want to geek out a little.  There is a relationship between income and wealth taxation.  If you enact a wealth tax, then by that very definition you'll lower your income tax base to some degree at the same time .. and vice versa.  i.e. The calculation is not as simple as to say "new taxation = more tax take".  The economists will need to model how any changes to the taxation model will affect the tax base over time - baring in mind the behavior changes in the population that new style of taxation will drive.  Here is a good example - https://taxfoundation.org/comparing-wealth-taxes-and-income-taxes/ ).

Its a bit confused who the crown estate belongs to. Its neither government property or part of the monarchs personal estate.

Simplicity is key. Drop NI and CGT, all through income tax alone, limited allowances etc.. why should income from selling assets be counted differently etc.. with another set of allowances and clauses. Income is income, funds arriving in bank accounts is what should count, not it's source. 

So I guess its a bit like saying - we could keep all the income that the English premiership generates for UK PLC .. but we could just get rid of the teams and players.  Right?

That's your point?  We don't actually need the things that generate the income to generate the income - we can just have the income on its own.  

That's your point - right?

Yeah .. probably with you on this point.  A simplified tax code would benefit us all.

I am curious how you feel this relates to the crown estate? What do you think the crown estate is? The royalties from the royal its a knock out?

Much of this thread has been questioning whether the royal family does actually benefit the UK financially at all, compared to the alternative, which would be to put assets currently reserved for royal use to more financially beneficial use instead. My Versailles example was to show that an active monarchy is not an essential part of the atraction of royal historic buildings.

But different tax codes drive different behaviour. Do we want to reduce tax on cigarettes / fuel / alcohol? Do we want to reduce the tax benefits of pension saving?

Maybe this is where we disagree John.

So I think you're saying "let's disband the royal family and confiscate all their assets" - fair?

So we would get 2x types of assets out of that move:

1. Their tangible assets.  i.e. Buckingham palace.
2. Their intangible assets.  i.e. royal warrants.

Their intangible assets will go to zero almost immediately.  You can very well give out royal warrants .. without royalty.  

Their tangible assets, Buckingham Palace, could absolutely be sold off.  Maybe it could be transformed into social housing?  What you're not going to be able to do though is say "this is a royal palace -  line up line up to come and pay to get in " if either A) no royalty live it in it or B) there is no royal family.  All we would have then is a old building in the middle of London where royalty used to live.  The value of Buckingham Palace is greater royals living in it .. that without.

Here is my point - if we did confiscate all their assets we would get the 1 time benefit to UK PLC however we would damage ourselves in perpetuity.

I am no royalist but I recognize, even though I hate it, that the British Royal Family are a net contributor to UK PLC and given the challenges this country now finds itself in .. we would be well advised to keep hold of any asset we currently have.

There needs to be space in this debate for federalists who recognize the fact that we should keep the royal family if only to sweat the asset for the greater benefit of the country.

The Royal Family do not create any of the wealth, they just use some of it. It's the people managing and working the assets they posses which generates the wealth. The monarch isn't out and about every day driving a tractor around the Duchy of Lancaster or collecting rent in Mayfair.

Evidence for this? Admittedly buck palace is probably the worse of the palaces available but if they did a Louvre on it with the Royal Collection I suspect it would do rather better than it does currently.

After all Buck palace was only open when the monarch is away.

The problem is you are announcing things as fact when they are clearly opinion.

Whilst it might not be absolutely essential, it’s also difficult to quantify just how much an active royalty do contribute to the value of such assets. Yes, more people may visit Versailles than Buckingham Palace (does standing outside at the gates count as a visit? Can’t see how you’d count that and differentiate foreign tourists to domestic) but do the majority of those people travel with that as their main attraction, or is it a side attraction to fill time? Tourists in France have the ability to do palaces, big mountains, cities, vineyards, hot beaches all in one trip. You won’t find many American tourists on Brighton beach even at the height of summer, they come for the city of London and it’s assets - royalty being one. (Some obviously do tour the UK but a small fraction of those that visit the capital. Source: I know far too many Americans).

That is wrong Ben ... you are only thinking about Tangible assets.  

Let's take the Royal Warrants:  "a warrant issued by the sovereign, especially one authorizing a company to display the royal arms, indicating that goods or services are supplied to the sovereign or to a member of the royal family."

Why do companies go to great length to apply for royal warrants?  ANS = because royal warrants help them ship product.  Higher volume of sales = more employment = more wealth for the nation.

You don't need to drive a tractor to generate wealth.  But you can't have a royal warrants system .. without a royal family.  

List of companies that hold (held - they need to be renewed now) Royal Warrants:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Warrant_holders_of_the_British_...

Boots, Britvic, BT, Cadbury, Calor Gas, Crown Paints, HP Foods, Jaguar, Laphroaig, Nestle, Samsung, Unilever, Waitrose, Xerox .... they all see the value in Royal Warrants.

Isn’t this exactly the same as Versailles as per John’s example, or many of the other chateaux in France, or indeed plenty of old houses in the UK where rich folk used to live, where you can definitely say ‘line up and pay to get in’? 

You are attempting to win a debate by demanding proof .. often referred to as Sealioning.  [1]

You have stated that Buckingham Palace would of greater value to UK PLC if turned into a museum. 

I have stated that Buckingham Palace is of greater value to UK PLC left as it is.

Neither of us have provided proofs for our claims and neither of us can prove or disprove the other ... without Buckingham Palace first being tested as a museum.

You will note that further up thread I did provide evidence supportive of the position that the UK royal family were a net positive contributor to UK PLC - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/the_tax_affairs_of_our_overlord...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

I think the example of Versailles rather answers that point. Great palaces attract great visitor numbers, irrespective of any extant royal family. 

Of course, the fact that Buckingham Palace is rather dowdy compared with the magnificence of Versailles might keep numbers down. 

It's not a matter of the monarch specifically not paying tax, but that if you have a monarchy, then, by its very nature, they don't have the same status as the rest of us and that may or may not affect their tax arrangements. 

If you can't accept that they get treated jn some ways differently from the rest of us then you should not support the monarchy which is a perfectly respectable position.

Have you ever bought products from any of those companies because they have royal warrants? 

As an aside, it's perhaps notable how many of those companies are not British. This hardly seems in keeping with the notion that the royal family is good for the promotion of British businesses.

Is it that great a length? You need to be a provider for x years and then can apply for it. 

So basically an add on to an existing contract.

You're the only one mentioning wealth taxes, no one has suggested one. You have branded IHT as wealth tax so you can use the example of France abolishing their wealth tax, this is true but they still have IHT rates far, far in excess of our own. If you are going to use wealth tax and IHT interchangeable then you can't cite France as an example of them not working.  

My god. Asking for evidence! How outrageous.

Your understanding of sealioning is about the same as your understanding of the crown estates.

Sealioning is not "asking for evidence" but, roughly, asking for irrelevant evidence and ignoring the answers when inconvenient.

Actually I didnt state that. I said I suspected it would and pointed out ways it could be utilised. Unlike your statements of fact.

Actually we can do a fairly good job. We can look at other former royal palaces and see how they do. Whilst not a perfect test it does okay. An obvious starter for ten would be the opening times.

A branding company PR piece? Thats your idea of evidence?

You might as well just claim divine right of kings and have done with it.

You can argue she was the first influencer, it's what she put her name to, championed etc..or even just the way she acted that maintained the uk or gb brand. Who else could pretend to jump out of a helicopter at a sports opening ceremony and have the sane effect? The challenge is for Charles and William to develop their own unique path. 

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/6315055c-en/index.html?itemId=/content/....

2.1. Characteristics of inheritance taxation

Inheritance taxation is a specific form of wealth taxation. 

Arguing that that Royal patronage does not add any value to Palaces or jars of jam is nonsense, its really the value of that endorsement that is in dispute. Within a range this is unprovable, we need evidence that we are outside that range to be sure whether the Royals get too much back from the Crown Estate etc. 

To be honest I find the money going to the Royal family less egregious than this:

https://corporatewatch.org/water-bosses-huge-pay-packets-analysis/#:~:text=....

There's no way you can convince me that at CEO on £2.4 million is making better decisions than one paid £100k, or that they are working 24 times harder or that they are responsible for adding an extra £2.3 million in profit.

I get it ... you're right but don't need to provide proof to back up your statements (And I didn't ask you to).  And I'm wrong .. because I didn't provide proof to backup my statement.

That is how internet debate works. Right?

Yes and you were using a different specific form of wealth taxation and applying it to IHT. France did abolish specific form of wealth taxation but not IHT so it is an invalid example to use if you want to argue against IHT. If you want our "wealth taxes" to match France then you will be advocating much higher IHT rates.

Ermm no I didnt say that but try again. Although given you didnt understand sealioning I doubt there is much hope for you.

Clearly in your case.

For palaces its highly debatable since you can make more efficient use of the property. The classic example being France. For other goods I would say it would vary. For something like weetabix I doubt the value would be high but for someone like an upmarket butchers it would tick some boxes. Although of course thats all relative value.

Which is a complete different discussion. I would suggest though that at least in theory shareholders of those companies do have some control over the business and, occasionally, CEOs are held accountable.  Whereas with the royals the accountability is even less.

I did not and am not arguing against IHT - i'm all for it.  I simply pointed out that IHT is a form of wealth taxation (it is) and that wealth taxation hasn't historically worked well as a form of redistribution of wealth, has often had the opposite effect, and in many instances has been abandoned as a result. 

IHT is an emotive issue .. but actually contributes very little to UK general taxation take and hence redistribution of wealth.  Since we are keen on evidence today: https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/inheritance-tax...  "In 2022-23 we forecast that IHT will raise £6.7 billion. This represents 0.7 per cent of all receipts and is equivalent to 0.3 per cent of national income."

That doesn't mean I'm not for IHT ... what I am highlighting is that, as IHT works in the UK today, it really isn't driving redistribution of wealth via the means of taxation at all.  

To be clear - I am 100% for IHT.  

Best way of redistributing wealth is to improve productivity and economic growth so alot more people earn more......

I would guess an IHT will always be tricky to collect as so long as the person is alive, most people would consider it fair to do with it as they will. This means that whatever system you put in place, people will be able to take perfectly legal steps to avoid it if they chose.
People who pay inheritance tax I would suggest have either made an active choice to do so, are ill informed or have had poor advice. 

As a thought experiment, if a person of modest means living with a partner of 30 years won £10 million on the lottery, and died of shock at the cheque giving, would you consider it fair for HMSC to take £4million or whatever, off the bereaved partner. Of course if they had not made a will, it is possible that Charley Boy would get it all, Keeerrrrcchiiingggg

I'm not sure why you (or I for that matter) are continuing to argue this. If your point is that the specific wealth taxes of the type tried in France are counter productive then fine, but no one else  has mentioned anything of the kind so your post was a bit of a non sequitur . If you are arguing that lowering IHT thresholds and raising rates is counter productive then you need an alternative example than France.

So we need higher rates and lower thresholds like they have, for example, in France!

You think the return is less than what we pay out, others think its more but neither side is really able to provide irrefutable evidence which is why this is something I don't feel too strongly about. Equally, it's impossible to work out how much of that brand value is wrapped up in the personality of the Queen and whether it has dropped significantly now we have a different arse on the throne.

That might increase absolute wealth but it won't do anything to redistribute it, might make it worse, e.g. Joe Pleb produces 4 widgets for Fat Cat Ltd owned by me. I make £10 on each one. If Joe suddenly starts producing 6 widgets I'm £20 better off but there's nothing to say Joe will be.

You are now wilfully missing the point  - see Robert Durran's reply.

Don't think I've said anything like that.

Which according to your numbers nets 93.3m against a cost of 292m. 

???

No it doesn't.  It says 193.3M annual contribution and makes no mention of the cost of administrating the service.

https://brandirectory.com/download-report/bf_monarchy_report_2017.pdf

I'm not missing the point, it's just a rephrasing. Robert clealy agrees with you, so maybe it is the shared view of British monarchists. It is relevant as there are many of us who don't support the monarchy but aren't really concerned with replacing it. I would be happier if it was slimmed down as it is in other counties (we've got a royal court for an empire not a medium sized country). From what you guys are saying British monarchists will reject that..... ultimately that may nudge the ambivalent to republicanism.

My mistake I should have been clear I meant 'monarchists'. It's the only justification for having them I've heard (oh and tourism)..

In fact you could then do away with holiday and sick pay, plus H&S legislation, (something Rees Mogg seems keen on), then make even more money. Joe won't see a penny of that in re-distribution.

Just to be clear, there was nothing in my post suggesting that I am a monarchist. I am closer to your position probably.

Although I am a monarchist (because I think the alternatives are worse), I do think the monarchy should be slimmed down, e.g., reduce the number of hangers on (various Dukes and Duchesses), the number of Royal estates, etc, and the whole question of the taxes they pay should be reviewed. I can't for the life of me see why their personal profits should not be taxed like everyone else's. I think the monarchy would be wise to do this, to forestall some of the reasonable criticisms.

Whilst I've not been inside Buckingham Palace, I have walked past it a few times and it seems rather less impressive to me than Versailles or any number of other European former palaces. Rather like No.10 v the Kremlin or Élysée. Also, there are a few other UK palaces, like Windsor, that I believe attract some visitors. Maybe that explains some of the difference? 

There seems a pretty strong correlation between productivity and GDP per capita, and many with the highest of both are relatively equal societies.

There is higher productivity in the Nordic and other countries as well as higher taxes. The two are linked.

Yep. 

Producing more in the same number of hours has zero impact on H andS , holidays etc. You misunderstand productivity. 

Yes, Luxembourg has the highest income, highest productivity and lowest working hours. It's about being efficient and doing high value work (which requires education, training etc).

You misunderstand the aims of this government.