Money

The big one, pure and simple; brass tax — how does the British monarchy stand up when we weigh the Pros and Cons of us, them and the almighty pound?

Pro:

Now, I’m not one to take bribes when remaining unbiased, but the Royals come to this debate with a pretty penny in a pretty purse unashamedly labelled ‘bribe’. How pretty a bribe? Well, the Royals generally bring in around £200,000,000 to the UK treasury each year. After that little left-hand jab they come in with the big right hook; 12 million tourists visiting the UK each year, and spending £7,000,000,000 in the process. With the big figures out of the way, further Pros in their favour include the fact that any costs to the taxpayer they cause are simply in place to cover their expenses; travel, upkeep, staff, etc. — expenses that any head of state would require, with their living expenses paid by their own private incomes. Then there’s the fact that the Crown Estate was surrendered to parliament in the 1700s and generates a considerable amount more money than maintain the Royals requires. Oh, and technically, all the Royal Palaces are owned by the nations. PALACE PARTY! Oh, and extra oh, they do a lot of charity work.

Con:

However, what are the costs of so many pretty, pretty pennies? Well, for you specifically, 66p. That is, that, the Royal Family costs the average British taxpayer 66p per year, which, with all persons taken into account, is around £40,000,000 in total. Which in turns brings that around £200,000,000 that they bring in down to around £160,000,000. Then there’s the Duchy of Lancaster and Duchy of Cornwall, two estates that each represent tens of thousands of acres of territory, each owned by the monarch and heir respectively and passed down as such. Thus, the Queen and Prince Charles currently own these duchies and both earn considerable incomes from these in the millions. Though both voluntarily pay taxes on these incomes, they are not the same as you or I would, and their actual duchies are not taxed despite their worth each being in the hundreds of millions. Oh, and that tourism boast, well, it’s impossible to specify if such levels of tourism are a direct result of our having a monarchy.