Public funding of the royal family should be optional

I think the Royal family do good charitable work, raise awareness of certain topics/charities, attend/ represent UK at state dinners etc, hosts other heads of states. If they didn't do this, then who would we have to do the job? Politicians are unlikely to be able to do this, mainly because they don't have the time and secondly the general public tend not to trust politicians. They're usually busy lining their own pockets than do charitable work. For 77p, that's pretty good value. Regarding opting out, it would likely cost more money to manage that.

There's lots of things I would like to opt out of, the way our government mismanage our taxes, I rarely use the NHS and have private medical. I don't use schools. Can I opt out of paying these? The answer would be no.

If you don't like it, go and live in a republic. There are several available.

NHS

How about:
public funding of the BGS should be optional
public funding of education should be optional
…
Yours is just as ludicrous a statement.

Besides, the Crown Estate profits go largely to the Treasury, so the monarchy pay a lot into the system. The advantage is that the government doesn’t own it, so they can’t sell it off like they do everything else.

Excellent idea. I don’t want to pay for the NHS. I don’t use it and I’m sick of paying for others. While we’re at it I’m not keen on paying for your child’s education. Either educate them with your own money or send them off to the workhouses.

we are all paying for things we don’t want to contribute towards OP. It’s a slippery slope

Id like to opt out of funding very very rich people who sit on their arses on a huge pile of money and do nothing. I need my 77p more than they do.

They do charity work for show, to create the illusion, like Charlie's cigar-chomping mate.

Masters of illusion, absolute masters.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the tradition, stability and continuity of the Royal Family.

They do enormous amounts of charitable work and also bring in tourism. No, people don’t go to Buckingham Palace expecting to catch a glimpse of King Charles but they do go because of its association with the Royal Family.

Yes the Dutch RF are an absolute bargain at 55 million euros and rising, compared to 86 mil for the UK's parasite in chief to live in eyewatering luxury, while millions of "subjects" bankrupt themselves paying £££ to develop respiratory disease from living in a mouldy hovel not fit for purpose.

It's medieval, the way Britain treats its people. They can have no self-respect, to then go and wave flags for a handful of very greedy humans who have taken from society far, far more than they can ever give back.

There are so many misconceptions regarding the Royal family.

The thing about the sovereign grant and the costs? Well, technically the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are owned by the crown, but that in the UK is interchangeable with "the state", this isn't privately owned land (it stays crown estate no matter who is on throne) and these pay massive amounts of money to the Queen and Prince of Wales which is not counted in the sovereign grant as private income. Nor does it cover the cost of police protection from the Met, which is just incorporated into the Met budget. It doesn't cover the cost of royal visits outside transport, the venues themselves put up the cost. There is a long list.

The Royal family also, and I cannot stress this highly enough, do not bring in tourists. The value of their contribution was calculated based on attractions related to the royal family, not themselves. So that's everyone visiting the Tower, Westminster Abbey, watching the changing of the guard etc. No one comes to "see" the royal family, they don't even come out to wave weekly like the pope.

No, we should just not fund them at all. They can live off their own money filched from slaves and peasants for thousands of years. We should keep the castles etc for tourism.

YABU & YANBU

There are strong arguments for keeping this system of head of state; look at Trump. The late queen was very good at being head of state, even many republicans think so.

There are strong arguments IMO for absolutely getting rid of most of their ring-fenced, death - duty avoiding property and land ownership, access to the PM, soft power international access etc.

Do the European monarchy thing. The Duchy of Lancaster and Cornwall incomes are huge - pay death duties and have fewer stately piles.

Prince Andrew lives in Royal lodge with one ex wife and a few old corgis.
Slimmed down monarchy? 🤔.

Versailles is still popular and they got rid of their monarchy.

It's a soap opera for the masses IMO. But it could be put to a referendum and the young vote is likely to be less passionate than the landed shire dweliing home counties living traditionalists.

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Because tax isn't optional. That would defeat the object.
Here's a list of tax payer funded things, tick which ones you want to pay and we'll forget the rest.....
Except, if half the tax payers say I don't want to pay for housing benefit for anyone...then everyone else's HB contribution needs to go up. So they "cancel" their national parks contribution to off set it.....outcome being chaos

Are we going to end up back on private jealthcare and schools again

So maybe they can make other things optional going by that thinking

Childless couples can not pay for schools, someone down south can opt out of paying for something north, men can opt out of paying for cervical cancer research etc.

There are lots of things I don’t want my money to go towards. I don’t get to choose. It’s the whole point of the tax system.

I don't think we will ever get rid of the RF in this country but I do think they should be slimmed down drastically to just the Monarch and heir and their partners, with max one official London residence and a country house. The rest they pay for themselves. They need to be held to account for things they do like exempt themselves from legislation and tax avoidance ( although I think Charles is more aware of these things than his mother, and has reduced the amount that goes to him. She was always trying to shill extra money for herself).

Sovereign grant should be illegal, not optional. Why can't the royals rent out their 27 palaces to fund themselves?

Can the £7 billion annual government/taxpayer subsidy of aviation also be optional? Anything else?

Hypothecated tax is quite complex to do and even NI is not quite that.
Yes it's annoying to pay for things we don't want. But that's democracy. We can't just pick and choose the bits we want.
So the way to change it is at the ballot box. Vote for parties that will abolish it

Isn’t this is the same stupid argument as the childless saying they don’t want their taxes to go towards a schools.

If you give people the choice where their taxes go it would, sadly, very quickly turn into quite a few people not giving tax money to the benefits system and housing for asylum seekers.

Guess ignorance crosses the political divide!

The opt out system costing more kind of us the point. The royal family would cost more of funds for an opt out system were introduced.

Instead of paying 77p per person in your house, you'd be paying £2.50 per person (or whatever) to not fund the royal family.

The 77p per person is a lot more per actual tax payer surely. The ones who are not children or pensioners or net benefit recipients.
OP you sound like a typical left wing idealist. Policy by emotion.

If any party wanted to put ‘Royal family to pay for themselves’ as a manifesto pledge it wouldn’t put me off voting for them if it was properly worked out. I’d be happy to see a more Dutch style RF. I think it would be bad for UK’s international reputation to be seen to be withdrawing all support and anyway, why not have a few people to sit in those golden carriages and wear those jewels?

Their being a subject of constant discussion has been harmful to my mental health (half joking).

On second point, they are definitely part of divisions and culture wars. Especially the last few years and their handling of a number of issues

Tourism

A lot of the Royal money is invested in offshore accounts, The Queen had to be shamed into paying tax. In this day & age, the sovereign grants should be stopped, they should fund everything from property to security themselves. Some of the crown estates should be sold off, Buckingham Palace is no longer a home, it's a glorified office block. Think of all the homeless that could be housed in all the empty properties.