Why isn’t the private estate of the Queen subject to inheritance tax?
Because it’s “Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs”.
I very firmly believe that the monarch has to be our equal before the law.
This abuse has to end.
For the same reason you can’t prosecute the Queen in court. Because it’s the Crown Prosecution Service, it’s “R v Worstall” and “R v R” would be just stupid, wouldn’t it?
Ireland is always available to those who don’t like this situation.
I might be wrong about this, but isn’t it all the Crown’s property?
So the queen ‘owns’ it because she had the crown.
Now she has passed, the crown passes to King Charles, along with all that the Crown owns.
In the same way that the Duchy of Cornwall passes to William.
Of course, it would be better if none of us had to pay inheritance tax…
CD, no, he’s referring to her private property. Not all of the palaces belong to the crown and there are collections of art and such that belonged personally to HMQ.
However, a more pertinent question to ask would be why anybody’s stuff should be taxed when they die. How much does it raise? How much is missed because of cheating and how much because of defensive measures undertaken legally which would not have happened without IHT? Is it worth the bother?
I’m not a fan of royalty and titles and sirs etc but I have to say that this is an acid test kind of thing. Or you could call it the cunt test. Congratulations Richard you have passed with flying colours.
His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs
How much does it raise?
IHT receipts received by HMRC during the financial year 2021 to 2022 were £6.1 billion. This was an increase of 14% (£729 million) on the financial year 2020 to 2021, and is the largest single-year rise in IHT receipts since the 2015 to 2016 financial year, when receipts rose by 22% (£848 million)
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/inheritance-tax-statistics-commentary/inheritance-tax-statistics-commentary
https://twitter.com/RichardJMurphy/status/1568882949306695685?t=oFU1ciLuFHXk-dddpvMRdw&s=19
“LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!”
What a massive cunt.
His motives may be vile but it’s a perfectly reasonable question. Mind you, I guess a lot of her wealth would be exempt because of Agricultural Property Relief.
It’s no use citing HMRC: she would be being taxed as an individual not as a monarch.
When George III handed over his estates to the government in return for a promise of payments called “the Civil List” I wonder if any promises were made about taxation and the King? Did he get to import Brandy and Port free from duties, for example?
IHT hitting generation after generation basically destroyed the fortunes of a lot of the minor aristos and landed gentry, leaving a legacy of Evelyn Waugh novels on their desperate decline and unaffordable stately homes having their contents auctioned off before being demolished. There are good reasons this isn’t seen as a desirable fate for the British monarchy – you don’t want them having to turn to shady foreign sources to get the funds to survive, and while you could top them up with extra UK government funds to prevent this kind of sustained intergenerational decline, what would be the point of imposing IHT on them then basically having to compensate them for it? It would I suppose be “fairer” if they pay IHT like everyone else (though “fairness” is a funny concept to apply to questions of a hereditary monarchy, because that’s certainly not the basis monarchy is founded upon) but it would be harder to calibrate a proper level of ongoing support.
Landed estates might get a bit of a chance to recover in between deaths, but death is random and, at an individual level, quite unpredictable – the real trouble comes when a couple of successors pop their clogs within short order, so there is a sequence of hammer blows with little chance to recuperate in between. Stability is supposedly part of the basis of modern monarchy, and the best way to ensure stability of the monarchy would be not to subject it to such hammer blows in the first place, rather than trying to figure out what level of supplication to the teat of the state (itself adding an unhealthy and destabilising dependency upon the whims of the government of the day) might compensate for ongoing IHT risks.
This is to inform you, you’ll no longer get a telegram from the queen at the age of 100 instead expect a text message from Andrew at the age of 14.
I think now Andrew might actually have lost that IHT exemption??
Richard, your envy is showing. Again.
Spud tweets:
“The role of the monarch in the UK is to be part of the mechanism of government.” No it isn’t. It is to be Head of State.
“It is not to open hospitals, or to host banquets.” Yes, it is (and much more besides)
“It is to be the person who consents to the passage of legislation after giving and receiving advice on the issue.” The last time Royal Assent was refused was 1708.
The Kingdom of Heaven is hardly democratic either, is it?
This from the bloke who wanted Corbyn and McDonnell to give him a lordship. What a massive See You Next Tuesday.
For extreme narcissists, the need to demonstrate world class sociopathy overwhelms any nicer feelings
@henry Crun – we can all act a bit cuntish at times sometimes accidentally, but the potato really leans into it and owns it. The fact that he set up a llp with his wife who spent several years in hospital (so in no way could be classed as an active partner) shows he’s really proud of his hypocrisy. The rest of it (cuntishness) comes naturally.
Good god, he can’t even understand (or even perceive) the difference between “consent” and “assent”. Do women “assent” to relations with him?
dearieme
It is exactly that.
HM pays tax on earnings outside of the Crown Estate but the whole “estate” itself is exempt because it is “Crown” property ie it belongs to the State rather than HM personally. IHT on personal wealth is exempt as part of the Civil List transaction to prevent dilution of the estate ( one reason being that, for instance, privately owned property might be transferred to the Crown and vice versa and the whole thing could take years to unpick ). Even paying tax on earnings was a political act, just to shut up some of Blair’s ( I think) lefty twats.
He’s the cunt’s cunt.
“Why isn’t the private estate of the Queen subject to inheritance tax?”
Because, technically, her entire estate is the Commonwealth.
She, and her successor, can hardly pay tax to themselves… it’d be silly>
Because the essence of taxes is that which you do to other people who happen to hang around in areas you can enforce your silly rules to.
Then again…. expect El Spuddo to have any sane notion about taxes….
Sorry, lads, but you’re just being illogical with this “you can’t pay tax to yourself” line. You might as well argue that civil servants or MPs shouldn’t pay income tax. You are confusing “yourself” as an individual with “yourself” as the wearer of the crown, the personification of the nation if you like. They are not the same “self”.
There’s no logical reason why Elizabeth Windsor as an individual shouldn’t pay income tax on her personal income to a government tax office that acts in the name of the crown. Similarly for IHT.
There might be reasons of tradition, or of details of the original agreement with the government of the day, or of public policy, but there’s no logical reason. If the result of declaring that King Charles’ estate will have to pay IHT were that the Windsor family said “sod you, then, we’re off to one of our other realms”, then you might argue that public policy would have been wiser not to impose the tax. Or you might argue it would prove cheaper and no less effective to ask a youngster of, say, the Danish royal house to come and be monarch. Hell it’s been a while since “we” (England, more precisely) had a Danish monarch. Or ask a cloggie: again we’ve not had a Dutch monarch for quite a while.
Or that Japanese lass who lost her royal status there for marrying a commoner. Invite her: her family has a much longer experience of royalling than the Windsors do.
His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs
Not so sure of that. A the moment of her death, the taxes owed by her estate were those set as owing to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. It becomes His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs after that event. If the tax law changed at that instant, her estate would still owe at the previous rate.
And at the moment she’s the Estate of the late Elizabeth (add appropriate names). A legal entity for tax purposes, since that’s what would pay the taxes.
Pendantic’s fun isn’t it?
IHT receipts received by HMRC during the financial year 2021 to 2022 were £6.1 billion.
How much did it cost to collect them?
@dearieme
His Maj is half-Danish, isn’t he? (To the extent his dad was a Danish royal.)
However you seek to narrate it, the monarch is head of state. The government is his government – it is answerable to him. Everything the government does is done in his name, so by definition the monarch is over the law. R v R is not only illogical; it is by definition impossible. And helpfully the monarch has a police force and a standing army ready to defend himself. And of course the legal profession all work for him. Kings Council and all that. In practice it doesn’t quite work like that, but for all practical purposes the monarch stands at the head of our constitution and sits above it. Democracy exists, if it exists at all, at his convenience.
In the US the President has a similar position, but there are checks and balances. For example, the President can be impeached. Hint to Democrats – this is supposed to be for very serious misdemeanor – not because he has burnt the toast again! There is a constitution that he protects, but which also binds him. In principle it is the same in the UK, except the constitution is what the Monarch says it is – sort of. And if it works (which is debatable) it does so because of good old fashioned British compromise.
We have had this system for over a thousand years. You would have thought even spud would have understood it by now!