Not defending that evil family, but this article is incredibly inaccurate. My understanding is that the act mentioned makes the royal family exempt from INCOME taxes. The reason they're exempt from estate taxes, is because they're not actually inheriting anything. From a legal standpoint, everything is being held in a series of special trusts (I'm not sure what the technical term for the type of trust is in the UK, but in the USA they're called Dynasty Trusts).
These trusts basically are written and created in such a way, that they never run out and either ever Trustee/Beneficiary is allowed to designate a "secondary beneficiary/trustee" that takes their place upon death, of they go ahead and lay out the rules of beneficial/trustee succession upon creation of the trust, wherein they can lay out the rules that their descendants must follow in order to get their inheritance.
By doing this, no individual heir ever legally inherits the actual estate, which is owned by a separate legal entity, and instead are only entitled to a portion of the annual estate income depending on whether they're just a beneficiary or a both a beneficiary and a trustee.
So technically anyone can do this, most people just have little to no use to do it.
On a side note, this is also a perfect way to avoid losing half your crap in a divorce and avoiding alimony. If you legally own nothing and reposition your "income" as "living expenses" then your ex has nothing to sue you over from a legal standpoint.
If what cathole posted below was true, the British aristocracy wouldn't have had their wealth decimated by inheritance taxes enacted generations ago. They could simply place their estates and wealth into a trust.
""The head of the family, the Queen, has an astonishing net worth of £365m according to the Sunday Times.
Owing to our Sovereign's “unique constitutional position,” she is “not legally liable to pay inheritance tax,” Hilesh Chavda a lawyer with Spencer West told Express.co.uk.
But there are caveats, Laura Harper a specialist in inheritance tax at Kingsley Napley told Express.co.uk: “Only the reigning sovereign is exempt from inheritance tax and only to the extent that their personally held wealth passes to the next sovereign.
“As such, if the queen were to leave her personally held estate to Charles, inheritance tax would not apply to her estate. ”Inheritance tax exemptions only apply to the Queen as reigning monarch, this means the rest of her family will be subject to death duties."
In 1993 a deal was agreed between the royals and the Government that the Queen would pay inheritance tax on certain parts of her estate."
The key point here is you're referring to the queen's **PERSONAL wealth, which is distinctly different from the royal estates being held in trusts.
I will freely admit that I'm not the most well versed on this topic as I'm not British, but upon a bit of further research I'll clarify where I was wrong.
British royals ARE exempt from the estate tax as well apparently, so I was wrong on that part. However, I was still correct about the trusts. The Duchy of Cornwall and Duchy of Lancaster (The 2 Royal estates from which the lifestyle of the British Royal Family are funded) are held in the types of trusts I mentioned.
The queen did indeed have a personal net worth of 365 million pounds (I'm American, I have a dollar key instead of a pound or Euro key), but the overwhelming majority of the $30 Billion royal estate mentioned in OP's article is held in some form of trust, either the British equivalent of a dynasty trust or a public trust (Which basically means it's treated as a national monument, kind of like the White House).
For example, the previous mentioned Duchies are also mentioned in this article as having a value of $750 Million and $1 Billion respectively. These estates can never be taxed as per the estate tax, since technically, the state owns them and the beneficiary is whoever the current Monarch/Crown Prince/Princess is.
That's how most of the Royal Estate works. Buckingham palace for example, is generally considered to be worth $1-4 Billion by itself, but it's also held in a public trust since it's a national monument with the beneficiary being the reigning monarch.
I understand that. However, it is hypocritical to put your money in a trust when the rest of the citizenry does not have that 'luxury'. Frankly, at least in this country, with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, there should be some remedy for both the PIT (personal 'income' tax) of despair and the current lack of both true representation and proper redress of greivances.
The monarchy did just that in the reign of George III, he wanted money to keep the ungrateful colonials (the 13 colonies) inline so a deal was struck with parliament. They gave him the money in exchange for his lands.
Not defending that evil family, but this article is incredibly inaccurate. My understanding is that the act mentioned makes the royal family exempt from INCOME taxes. The reason they're exempt from estate taxes, is because they're not actually inheriting anything. From a legal standpoint, everything is being held in a series of special trusts (I'm not sure what the technical term for the type of trust is in the UK, but in the USA they're called Dynasty Trusts).
These trusts basically are written and created in such a way, that they never run out and either ever Trustee/Beneficiary is allowed to designate a "secondary beneficiary/trustee" that takes their place upon death, of they go ahead and lay out the rules of beneficial/trustee succession upon creation of the trust, wherein they can lay out the rules that their descendants must follow in order to get their inheritance.
By doing this, no individual heir ever legally inherits the actual estate, which is owned by a separate legal entity, and instead are only entitled to a portion of the annual estate income depending on whether they're just a beneficiary or a both a beneficiary and a trustee.
So technically anyone can do this, most people just have little to no use to do it.
On a side note, this is also a perfect way to avoid losing half your crap in a divorce and avoiding alimony. If you legally own nothing and reposition your "income" as "living expenses" then your ex has nothing to sue you over from a legal standpoint.
The Queen did pay Income Tax. Whether the King will I don't know.
If he paid it, he would be the recipient.
It's good to be King. In any event is this a surprise? These kinds of families are sovereign to themselves and pay no taxes.
That’s the whole point of monarchy.
But of course, peasant.
The original joke was by Coluche.
If what cathole posted below was true, the British aristocracy wouldn't have had their wealth decimated by inheritance taxes enacted generations ago. They could simply place their estates and wealth into a trust.
""The head of the family, the Queen, has an astonishing net worth of £365m according to the Sunday Times.
Owing to our Sovereign's “unique constitutional position,” she is “not legally liable to pay inheritance tax,” Hilesh Chavda a lawyer with Spencer West told Express.co.uk.
But there are caveats, Laura Harper a specialist in inheritance tax at Kingsley Napley told Express.co.uk: “Only the reigning sovereign is exempt from inheritance tax and only to the extent that their personally held wealth passes to the next sovereign.
“As such, if the queen were to leave her personally held estate to Charles, inheritance tax would not apply to her estate. ”Inheritance tax exemptions only apply to the Queen as reigning monarch, this means the rest of her family will be subject to death duties."
In 1993 a deal was agreed between the royals and the Government that the Queen would pay inheritance tax on certain parts of her estate."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1508459/Royal-family-inheritance-tax-queen-evg
The key point here is you're referring to the queen's **PERSONAL wealth, which is distinctly different from the royal estates being held in trusts.
I will freely admit that I'm not the most well versed on this topic as I'm not British, but upon a bit of further research I'll clarify where I was wrong.
British royals ARE exempt from the estate tax as well apparently, so I was wrong on that part. However, I was still correct about the trusts. The Duchy of Cornwall and Duchy of Lancaster (The 2 Royal estates from which the lifestyle of the British Royal Family are funded) are held in the types of trusts I mentioned.
The queen did indeed have a personal net worth of 365 million pounds (I'm American, I have a dollar key instead of a pound or Euro key), but the overwhelming majority of the $30 Billion royal estate mentioned in OP's article is held in some form of trust, either the British equivalent of a dynasty trust or a public trust (Which basically means it's treated as a national monument, kind of like the White House).
For example, the previous mentioned Duchies are also mentioned in this article as having a value of $750 Million and $1 Billion respectively. These estates can never be taxed as per the estate tax, since technically, the state owns them and the beneficiary is whoever the current Monarch/Crown Prince/Princess is.
That's how most of the Royal Estate works. Buckingham palace for example, is generally considered to be worth $1-4 Billion by itself, but it's also held in a public trust since it's a national monument with the beneficiary being the reigning monarch.
Good God almighty.
You should bitch that others have to pay it, not that the literal king doesn't have to pay inheriting taxes.
I understand that. However, it is hypocritical to put your money in a trust when the rest of the citizenry does not have that 'luxury'. Frankly, at least in this country, with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, there should be some remedy for both the PIT (personal 'income' tax) of despair and the current lack of both true representation and proper redress of greivances.
The royals are just figureheads at this point, the couldn't disband income tax if they wanted to.
Granted. In the States, the personal income tax was originally intended to only apply to government officials.
Monarchies and dictatorships exemplify grifting supremacy. It just doesn't get any more grifty than that.
UpChuck III. Wonder if he makes it through this winter. Germany planning soliders to patrol peace to quell riots over price hikes, shortages as of Oct 1, and somewhere I read so is the UK. https://www.martinvrijland.nl/en/news-analyses/duitse-leger-gaat-per-1-oktober-door-de-straten-patrouilleren-maar-waarom/
But they can use the assets as collateral to raise a ton of money.
The monarchy did just that in the reign of George III, he wanted money to keep the ungrateful colonials (the 13 colonies) inline so a deal was struck with parliament. They gave him the money in exchange for his lands.
u/cathole953 explains this better than I could.
yeah, the pigs! The PIGS were more equal than others.