Public funding of the royal family should be optional

Brand Finance are a marketing company; enough said.

Their mighty reputation is self-declared.

Nonsense, there are MANY other things I'd love to be able to opt out of paying for, but this is way down the list (and way down the list of what it costs me, the taxpayer). We all have to pay for things we don't agree with and don't support, it's the way of a democratic society.

YANBU.
If the royal family is such a money spinner, privatise it. I remain unconvinced and would absolutely opt out.

Economic Impact Studies

Brand Finance Reports

2017 Report: According to Brand Finance, the monarchy's annual contribution to the UK economy was estimated at £1.8 billion. This includes tourism revenue, the uplift to businesses from royal warrants, and the value of the monarchy as a global brand.

2019 Report: Another report by Brand Finance suggested that the monarchy's overall value to the UK economy could be as high as £67 billion, considering both tangible and intangible benefits.

Are you basing this 77p per person on the entire UK population or just those who pay tax?

e.g. Do babies pay it too? 😆

Absolutely this.

It's rare to see a post that openly displays such a lack of knowledge on so many different issues.

if the public was fully knowledgeable about the accounts and whats what, then im 50/50 but as chances are even if the public were knowledgeable some would then still be mixed on reasons for voting etc, in that case for the good that the royal family do for the country and have done.

overall the public should not have that option

I’d abolish them personally, they entrench the hereditary privilege at the centre of public life and prolong the hierarchy of the hugely socially damaging class system, plus none of the tourism or diplomacy arguments sway me (and plenty of royals have been extremely undiplomatic over time). If they truly were purely figureheads then maybe they could stick around as a historical vestige, but the King gets the same red boxes as the Prime Minister which as a non-elected individual is fundamentally wrong in my eyes.

But we can’t pick and choose where our taxes are spent, we can only elect the government that spends them (don’t get me started on proportional representation!) I’d be happy for my 77p to go the NHS, but it’s not a workable solution.

I agree OP and I don’t see how anyone who believes in democracy and meritocracy can think otherwise. Giving someone a public paid role based purely on their genes is simply an extreme form of racism. How would people feel if there were certain public sector roles that only people with genes from specific ethnic backgrounds were allowed to do. They’d be an uproar. But that is what the royal family is.

If only we could opt out of paying people for having children, or NI if you want to only go fully private, or libraries because you don't use them, or any other thing we don't like...

Huge family though, so shall we leave each household £3m instead?

Sure, and i also think centuries of all aristocratic estates/assets should be given back to the state save for maybe £5m to allow them to adjust to an ordinary upper/middle middle class lifestyle.

Royal family will also say they fund themselves and bring in tourists.

Can have all the opinions but will never be enforceable...

I am really shocked at how many people have no idea how funding the Royal Family really works.

The Sovereign Grant is the annual funding mechanism of the monarchy that covers the work of the Royal Family in support of the King, including expenses to maintain their official residences and workspaces. In this exchange, the King surrenders the revenue of the Crown Estate and in return, 12% of the profits from the Crown Estates are granted back to him for official expenditure.

They GIVE us money, not TAKE from us.

If they really cared about the public and all the hospitals and hospices they visited the could really prove they cared by
Paying tax on their private wealth
Paying death duties
Most of us can't use legal loopholes and tax havens to dodge our taxes and then have it hidden by the state in a big golden secret box

I predict that, if this came in, of the 31.7 million taxpayers in the UK, roughly 1 person might opt to pay extra tax to fund the royal family.

This panel discussion 'cost of the crown' (linked below) illustrates how the wealth of the royal family is hidden by statute. They have almost total financial privacy unlike the rest of us. They are not subject to public information requests and the royal wills are sealed.

The obvious question is: why not be completely transparent if there is nothing to hide?

We are a bunch of credulous chumps when we fall for their PR.

But you can't get 'booted out'. That's the whole point. Either you agree with unearned privilege or you don't.

There is a lot of other public spending of taxpayers' money with which I disagree, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

How could something like this be administered? Tick a box if you don't want to pay tax to fund X,Y or Z? Totally unworkable.

@Onomatofear Fo you have any evidence that this is a myth? My understanding is that the royal estates bring in much more revenue that is is returned by either the sovereign grant or security costs. The Crown Estates pay 100% of their revenue to the treasury and they get a small portion back as the sovereign grant.

These estates are managed by the monarch and involve property that is both the property of the crown and the personal property of the current incumbent- High Grove and Sandringham are both part of the Crown Estates and managed by them but were bought by previous members of the RF with private money. Also see half the painting in the royal collection.

I think if you're booted out of the RF or choose to leave, you should then pay the taxpayer back.
Not constantly demand more. Not expect us to pay for your security. I'm looking at you Andrew, Harry and Meghan.

Or Italy. Hardly anybody goes to Rome or Venice or Florence. They’d get far more tourists if only they’d kept the Medicis.

I’ve got no skin in this game - but I often wonder if the people who don’t want the RF to be funded still expect them to work? Are they willing to fork out the money (and security costs, housing etc) for whatever replacement you end up with? Every country needs someone to do all those annoying things that the RF does - we have people employed (not democratically btw) and paid wages for that - and they generate zero financial return from tourism, media etc. Will the terrorism threats disappear if you don’t have a RF or will they persist? I’m guessing there’s be some drop in sector threats cause RF are targets - but it’s not a trivial exercise to forecast just how much you’d save in security by shifting to being a republic. I presume you’d still be opposed to terrorist attacks on your ex-RF, but I guess after a s couple generations you’d not care about them?

Oh - and everyone saying that tourists don’t visit the UK because of the RF they do! How much tourism would change no clue, but the simple existence of your RF does motivate some people to visit the UK, and to do tourism in a certain way. While the RF was never my primary motivation for travelling to the UK I met others where that was the case (one trip coincided with a royal wedding - lots of people were there for that!), and I certainly spent money on things solely because of your RF. For some tourists there’s a difference between a recreation of history and a current practice in terms of willingness to pay. But without becoming a republic you’ll not know if there’s any net difference in tourism income.

I also suspect that outside violent revolution many of the financial benefits of removing the RF don’t materialise. How much land do they own? How much art? How many places that are opened to the public are actually owned by the RF? If you simply remove the monarchy but don’t confiscate their wealth - what are you left with? Presumably you’ll also remove all other titles - but does that take their lands and wealth? Other than the 77p what do you feet back financially?

(there’s certainly non-monetary reasons for becoming a republic - and for me these are stronger arguments, but if the argument is going to be financial you need to consider detailed financial impacts. Being a republic definitely doesn’t stop your citizens from starving, or ensures fair distribution of wealth, or stops your taxes going to things you don’t support).