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Monarchists: can you explain the appeal? (crazypeople.online)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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I guess my question is specific to the british royal family.

I saw a post online that said "God save the King" and had a photo of the king. The idea of a monarch or reverence for any other type of leader simply because they are the leader is outside of my experience.

I'm not here to disagree or argue, please don't feel like you need to justify or convince me. I can accept that people value different things.

I would like to understand the appeal the monarchy or even specifically King Charles has for people who respect and support the monarchy.

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[–] [S] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Thank you for your detailed reply! Some of what you said didn't match my understanding. I recognize I'm taking this from wiki vs your experience as a person from the UK, but maybe you can help me understand?

But they're still an aristocratic family, which means they have access to extraordinary wealth and control of a vast business empire... except they don't. All their estates, land, businesses, interests, etc are held in reserve as the Crown Estate which is operated on their behalf by a Government-appointed manager. The income from the Crown Estate goes straight to the Government and the Government pays the Royal Family a salary - the Sovereign Grant - which is typically between 25% and 35% of the Crown Estate's profits.

I don't think this is true. For example:

  • they own private residences
  • some of the privately owned residences are maintained by a self sustaining not for profit which means admission costs etc pay for the upkeep of these private properties.
  • the holdings of the Crown Estate are massive, but the intent of the money is to cover the cost of being a royal.
  • "In addition to the Sovereign Grant, the monarch continues to receive the revenue of the Duchy of Lancaster, while the Prince of Wales receives the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall."
  • they have private wealth

"ThEy'Re TaX dOdGiNg PaRaSiTeS": they pay an effective tax rate of at least 60%, which is about 60% more than anyone else with that income.

This article says the crown is tax exempt and that the dutchy of Cornwall claims this too. It states the Sovereign Grant is tax exempt, but individuals have voluntarily paid equivalent amounts.

Royal.UK says:

Taxation The King pays tax.

In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II volunteered to pay income tax and capital gains tax, and since 1993 the Monarch's personal income has been taxable as for any other taxpayer.

His Majesty is subject to Value Added Tax and pays local rates on a voluntary basis.

And

Under the 1337 charter, as confirmed by subsequent legislation, The Prince of Wales does not own the Duchy's capital assets, and is not entitled to the proceeds or profit on their sale, and only receives the annual income which they generate (which is voluntarily subject to income tax).

The 2024-2025 financial statement mentions that

In addition to the funding received by the Royal Household, income from the Duchy of Cornwall funds the private and official expenditure of the Prince and Princess of Wales and is taxed to the extent it is not used to meet official expenditure.

But the above states that this is voluntary. I'm not seeing anything about the 60% effective tax rate. What am I missing?

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  • [–] -1 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I don’t think this is true

    Actually, I think the links you provide back my points up pretty well. In fact, the Wikipedia articles you linked mentions that the Sovereign Grant is "15% to 25%" of the profits of the Royal Estate, not 25% to 35% as I thought. That's means the Government keeps 75% to 85% of their income, which is the "effective tax rate of at least 60%" I was talking about.

    they own private residences... self sustaining not for profit...

    Aristocrats gonna aristocrat. There isn't a stately home in the country that doesn't generate income from just existing. The National Trust owns a lot of them and is a charity that is broadly laudable, but most of the rest don't burden themselves with the notion of being "non-profit".

    since 1993 the Monarch’s personal income has been taxable as for any other taxpayer

    And as you mentioned, the rest of their income is taxed as if they were normal humans rather than aristocrats. It may be on a "voluntary" and incredibly malleable basis, but that's probably because they know they'd get crucified if they didn't and, regardless, the income from non-Crown Estate concerns is basically negligible.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 3 months ago

    Look, I'm not saying this because I am assigning some moral or ethical judgement to paying taxes but calling the set up of the Royal Estate as tax is...flawed.

    That is like saying an individual who withdraws a salary from their corporation is taxed at the rate equivalent to what they didn't withdraw.

    Further,

    The revenues from these hereditary possessions have been placed by the monarch at the disposition of His Majesty's Government in exchange for relief from the responsibility to fund the Civil Government

    ...

    In 1760, George III surrendered control over the estate's revenues to the Treasury,[6] thus relieving him of the responsibility of paying for the costs of the civil service, defence costs, the national debt, and his own personal debts. In return, he received an annual grant known as the Civil List.

    I guess the revenues don't fully cover the cost of the government? Seems like a good deal for the monarchy vs a tax?

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