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Originally Posted by TheDaddy
She lives in it, doesn't pay rent and tells others if they can stay there or not, sounds like she owns it to me!!
Crown estates which are going to pay less tax for quiet a while, so from taxes in a round about way
Except ones an amusing old man and the other is a nob with a well honed act that people seem happy to be taken in by for some reason.
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It sounds like you don't really understand how the Crown Estate works.
Buckingham Palace does not belong to Elizabeth Windsor. It belongs to the Crown and is part of the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate owns land and buildings all over the UK and generates income from them. The income net of running costs is paid to the treasury. The treasury gives 15% of that income to the Queen and she uses that to pay for the Royal Family's running costs. This includes the costs of running the houses they live in. She doesn't own them, nor does she rent them. They are a perk of the job, but a perk she is responsible to maintain day-to-day. Exceptional costs, however, are not expected to be covered out of the usual allowance from the estate. Repairs to Windsor Castle after the fire in 1992 were paid for by donations, by opening Buckingham Palace to the public and by £2 million of the Queen's private income. It's a catastrophe like that that is part of the reason it's imperative that we get this work done rather than using it as an excuse for the usual republican suspects to have a whinge.
To reiterate: the Crown Estate does not pay tax on its profits. *All* its profits are paid to the exchequer, and 85% of its profits remain with the exchequer, to be allocated and spent in the same way as all other government income.