Recent Posts

Went from 91 back to 100 today. Lost balls and 3 putts doing the damage. 😩

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Blobs spoiled my round today but at least I didn't blob the dreaded 18th.

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I hate the 18th on Moorlands. I blob it every time.

Feeling a bit sorry for Steve Clarke. 2 things made his job extremely difficult:-

1. The SPL, and particularly the Old Firm, do not provide the support they could. Celtic/Rangers provided 5 men in a 26-man squad. 3 Defenders, a GK who played 0 games in the SPL last year, and a Midfielder on loan at Kilmarnock. I appreciate budgets are tight-but if Celtic and Rangers spent as much on Scottish players as Japanese/English he would have had more of a chance. As examples, where are the youngsters coming through? Why is Gunn not playing any football?

2. The current 48 team format is totally unfair to the early Groups. Because the later Groups know exactly what is required to be a qualifying 3rd place finisher. Knowing FIFA, their solution will likely be a 64 team format

The monarch is not occupying the property. He refuses to live in it, and has made that public.

If-and only if-he chose to live in it then he might become liable for its upkeep. Although I rather doubt even then he would be responsible for a £250 million upgrade to a 778 room mansion whose main uses are purely ceremonial and have been due for decades, if not centuries.

You are referring to his duty to pay certain rents/upkeep when he invites friends and (non-working) family to stay in Crown property out of his own money.

Who do you think might be best placed to spend £250 million on a c.£7 Billion Palace-a King or a massive specialist property company, you know the ones who own the place on behalf of the nation. The ones who spend £hundreds of millions every year on lots of Crown properties.

If you believe there is no legal problem giving all the income and profits to 1 entity, and all the expenses are both to be paid for by someone else and there is to be no chargeback in relation to the net profits made by the Owner, then I'm going to disagree.

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3. A decision has been made for that £250 Million to be part of the Sovereign Grant, rather than a business expense of Crown Estates
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If the Monarch is occupying the property then it's the Monarch's responsibility to pay it out of their money

This is not a new thing

It is an established rule

The King hasn't received a windfall from the taxpayer - because that expense has not been taken away from the Crown Estate and given to the government (via the Monarch) - that expense was never the Crown Estate's to start with

[If]

Completely agree that Crown Estates are, by and large, beyond reproach.

The 1 problem that I am referring to in all of this relates rather more to the actions of Accountants/Accounting Rules and the Treasury, as opposed to Crown Estates.

I'm certainly no Accountant. But I will simplify this via making certain assumptions. Which will undoubtedly mean that the numbers will not be right. But the principle should be. So-for this purpose, let us assume:-

1. That the Monarch receives 20% of Net Profits (I believe for various years the figure was lower);
2. The Cost of upgrading Buck House is £250 million
3. A decision has been made for that £250 Million to be part of the Sovereign Grant, rather than a business expense of Crown Estates
4. A decision has been made that this is to be funded by the Treasury, rather than Crown Estates
5. As a result, the £250 million does not (as far as I can see) appear on the calculations in relation to net profit. Logically, because the decisions of 3/4 above have taken the expense outside the remit of Crown Estates, and into the remit of the Monarch and General Taxpayer. Making the "net" profits of Crown Estates rather higher than they might otherwise have been

If those figures are right, then the King has received a windfall from the Taxpayer of (20% x £250 million) =£50 million

I literally just read the part where you suggested the Monarch has any control over anything to do with the Crown Estate and spun it off there

I read a lot of the books when I worked for a law firm doing conveyancing and amongst that was very much the central principle that - the Crown Estates are completely independent

I think there's plenty of questions that can be raised about the Monarch's finances - particularly their private business

But the Crown Estate paying the government all it's money

And the government allocating a small portion of that to fund the Head of State - does not seem controversial

The government being able to use some of the money from the Crown Estate to fund the administrative headquarters of the UK Head of State also doesn't seem controversial

The main thrust of my original article was "The Royal Family, "Tax" and "Transparency". The clue really is in the title.

I don't know your background. Mine was as a Commercial Solicitor, regularly dealing with commercial matters for Companies of every size. I have read thousands of annual reports. Very few of which have contained as little actual information as that one, but I am sure that is deliberate and has reasons behind it.

The point I was trying to make is not a difficult one, but I presume I have not made myself sufficiently clear. Crown Estates are responsible for managing a very large Property portfolio. The Monarch is responsible for the upkeep of Royal residences.

Buckingham Palace is not a Royal Residence. It is a 778 room commercial building. The £250 million spend on the Palace is not "upkeep". It is a massive programme of upgrade and improvement. I have no idea whether it represents value for money. And I have no interest in that particular debate. The bit I really don't get is why a massive commercial property project in relation to Crown Estate Property is not simply under the control of the multi-£billion property company of the Owner, as opposed to part of the Sovereign Grant. Or, put another way, paid by Crown Estates, rather than the Treasury. The only other thing that interested me was reporting a "net revenue profit" of £500 million in the last financial year. Now, unless things have changed a lot since I retired, "net revenue profit" is not the same as "profit". Simply because it refers to some, but not all, expenses.

But that is very much a separate topic. The original purpose of my original post was to comment on why the Royal Family (or, more accurately, Monarchs and future monarchs) receive money in a way that is far less transparent than under the old Civil List.

If you are interested, the reason the whole deal relating to Tax treatment of Royals was changed is this.

The old Rules had an exemption (like now) for monarch to monarch transfers. However, George VI left substantial assets to his Wife, the Queen Mother. Not Property-high end art and jewellery. Queen Elizabeth II realised that, under the rules then in place, she would be liable to pay IHT on her Mother's estate. Consequently, a new agreement was drawn up in 1993, whereby the Monarch was to be exempt from IHT for monies received. So-when the Queen Mother died in 2002, her £70 million estate was not subject to Tax

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And so it goes...

Just playing 18 holes in today's heat is a feat in itself!