Public funding of the royal family should be optional

[FuckinghamPalace]

Not sure if this has been duscussed before but…

What if the tax payer could opt out of funding the royal family? And opt in if they want to contribute?

It should be optional

Why not?

Such a naive question. Can I opt out of funding the net zero nonsense, or maybe I don’t feel like putting money towards pensioners or the welfare budget. Maybe engage your brain (if you have one) before asking ridiculous questions.

'They don’t come expecting to see one of the RF. '

Have you ever been to Buckingham Palace on a state occasion like a wedding? It's heaving with Americans who have come to see the royals. Not the buildings but the Royal family and the pomp and ceremony.

Paris is the most visited city in the world and they executed their monarchy.

I think we should.do what the French did.

Why should these unelected people get preferential treatment just because they came put of some inbreds vagina.

Can we opt out of other things. I'm happy to pay for the RF but I don't use schools, libraries or public transport. Can I opt out of the portion of my tax/council tax that pays for them?

String em up then

@Crispsandcola The UK has 160 billionaires. None of them are Royals.

I remember seeing a study showing that even though charities supported by the royal family benefited from their patronage, other charities lost out by an equal amount. Ie: there was always going to be a certain amount given to charities by the British public, and the involvement of the royal family just put a thumb on certain scales.

Well Diana did quite a lot for AIDS awareness

I'd rather my, and everyone else's, 77p funded something else. It seems like nothing in isolation but it's a huge amount cumulatively that could fund adult social care or another area with huge deficit. Obviously it's not as simple as just switching money from one area to another but why they need everyone's 77p or whatever the amount actually is... well that's a mystery.

I have to admit I much prefer the Monarchy with Charles at the helm.

Hear hear 👏👏👏

The royal family generates a LOT of interest and therefore a lot of money. Especially in the US. Tourism and journalism. I think it's beneficial, even if not as popular as it once was, for these reasons.

apparently they make more money than they take so I’m not complaining

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.

Tourism

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

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?

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.

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!

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

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

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

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).

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.