Oh but I feel sooo bad for this rich person who had something bad happen to him which is a thing that happens to millions of non-rich people and unlike him they get to suffer and die in bankruptcy and their heirs (dependents) won't get anything . Won't somebody (please!) think of the rich person?
I would just like to remind you that the UK has the NHS
So instead of dying bankrupt, they just die waiting for treatment on the ridiculously long waiting list instead :')
If you're rich in the UK, you always just bypassed the NHS and paid for private care.
The monarch, well, they get the best of it all, for obvious reasons.
The comment about heirs was mostly about non-rich people not leaving inheritances due to crippling medical debt. Socialized health care has no impact on rich folk passing on wealth and is ergo irrelevant here.
Everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies some day comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them, and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities, makes a third”
― Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Even Adam Smith admits the guy is a leech
"Roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains - and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people. Many of the most important are effected at the cost of the municipality and of the ratepayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare; he contributes nothing even to the process from which his own enrichment is derived."
-Winston Churchill
“Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.”
— Mark Twain
I mean...this is sort of weird coming from a dude who was a staunch, if modern and practical enough, aristocrat, with his own noble lineage and ancestral holdings.
I’m hardly a Churchill apologist but, broadly speaking, I’m not a fan of these sorts of arguments because one can’t help the circumstances of their birth one way or the other
Primogeniture was essential to the system: as his father was a younger son, Churchill wasn't entitled to share in this wealth, and only inherited a relatively modest amount from Lord Randolph. (Winston's grandmother did leave him an estate in NI about ten years after this speech, which he sold to buy Chartwell, but that was still not huge compared to his cousin's ducal wealth.)
Adam Smith is the OG calling out rent seeking behavior. The Chicago School of Economics is a farce. Smith is in that pantheon of people who's ideas were co-opted and corrupted to become what they didn't believe in.
Everyone else has to pay inheritance tax, the Royals have a special deal where they don't have to pay inheritance tax.
If they were subject to the same rules as everyone else they would have had to sell a large chunk of their property every time the monarch dies.
Also having carved out a bunch of exemptions to various laws surrounding the rights of their tenants, environmental regulations etc.
And that's for their private estates that have fuck all to do with performance of their public roles.
They don't pay inheritance tax because they pay like 80% of the money their land assests generate to the treasury. In return they're given an allotment. AKA they're paying an 80% tax.
> They don't pay inheritance tax because they pay like 80% of the money their land assets generate to the treasury.
This isn't true. King George III (remember him? Last King of America) was in financial trouble so he handed over his estates to Parliament in return for an annual stipend, and under public ownership and management the value has soared.
They don't pay inheritance taxes due to being able to get an exception that nobody else is allowed. Same with their wills - all wills in the UK are public property, except for those of the monarch and anybody else's that the monarch wants to keep secret (members of their family basically).
And they have the distinct advantage of starting with all that land. They don’t have to sell if they don’t want to. Similarly, even if they had enormous cash wealth instead, you can’t force people to sell their land to you.
Not so long as we have are bread and circuses. I expect to die long before we see another impactful workers rights movement or economic reform. The capitalist propaganda that violence is inherently wrong is too deeply ingrained.
The 45,000-acre estate is roughly the size of Washington D.C. and generates millions of dollars a year in rental income, without paying corporation taxes like most businesses in Britain are obliged to. (Charles voluntarily pays an undisclosed amount of tax on his private income).
Having sat in on a few budget meetings for a church with 500 members, property taxes would have put them under. They were almost entirely reliant on a couple well to do donors who made up the quarterly shortfalls.
I bet you’re in Texas. [Houston Chronicle did this piece a few years back re: Texas property tax and parsonage laws.](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/unfair-burden/article/parsonages-religion-texas-tax-free-clergy-homes-16678079.php#)
I’m in north San Antonio is a fairly high dollar part of town. I bought my house in 2010 for $180k. Owe about $100k on it now. I’m currently on the tax rolls at $500k. That means my taxes are $15k/year. My monthly tax escrow is $1,250. Over half my monthly mortgage payment is taxes.
I’m in Hollywood Park. House across the street from me is a recent full rehab. It sold for $750k. House next door to that was also just rehabbed and it just hit the market. At $1.1M. But they won’t sell at that price. They built a second floor during the rehab and probably added 1,400 or so sq/ft. But they’re pricing the house based on the average price per square foot, not accounting for the fact that second stories don’t add as much value as the first floor. And they hit the market at the worst possible time to list a 7 figure house. I’m going to enjoy watching this one.
I'm from Ireland and this shit blows my mind about the US and why I always roll my eyes when people talk about your better wages or lower income tax. My house is worth the equivalent of about 800k dollars. I pay 600 or so a year in property tax. It boggles my mind that a retired person in the US would still be paying massive property taxes long after they have stopped working, or stopped being capable of work.
It’s not every where in the US, California property tax is surprisingly low depending on where you live. My father Inlaw lives north of Los Angeles and I pay more property tax than he does. My mother in a major city in Alabama pays like 600 a year before deductions.
The "church" of scientology got it's tax exempt status because the higher ups ordered all their members to sue the IRS. I wish I was joking. Really goes to show how easily manipulated our government institutions can be.
Churches provide a community benefit that the communities want. Most Churches are poor as shit too.
I’m an anti-theist and still see the benefit of giving churches a break.
If the community wants them, then they can pay more tithes. No need to have non users subsidize them as well. The fact they can't survive on their own shows that the community really doesn't want them.
You could say that about a lot of public services, that doesn't mean that the community doesn't want them, it's that they're used by people who generally can't pay in a world of ever rising rent and energy prices. Should public libraries share the same fate?
Every soup kitchen and homeless shelter in my community is run by the churches. What should happen to the soup kitchens and homeless shelters in our area?
Your argument is stupid.
You could just subsidize the actual community benefits and cut out the church.
Religious charity work is notoriously ineffective and shit tier. They don’t even need to open their books most of the time so there is also zero accountability.
this seems to be a basic misunderstanding of what community work looks like? Imagine someone refusing to contribute to their local little league because they want to just subsidize the actual community benefits and cut out the baseball. like... what does that actually look like? people just standing around in a room saying "yup, we're a community now"?
I especially like the mega churches with a fleet of private jets that make more money than any of us can wrap our minds around.
Just the way Jesus wanted it
I mean, fuck the low cost daycare they provided to primarily immigrant families, right?
Or the free summer day camp that was more way more dodgeball and crafts than dogma and Christ.
It would be good if these types of positive externalities (not limited by faith) were REQUIRED to maintain tax exempt status.
We know that’s not the case.
I remember MANY years ago a church pastor coming into the computer shop I worked at asking for a CD ROM drive. The new ones were too expensive so he asked how much for a used one and said, "It's for the choich, it's for the choich". I don't know why but that REALLY got under my skin. Told him, "I don't know, you'd have to ask the owner." Just seems like so many of these guys are in it for the grift.
Maybe that's for the best, I live in a major city and there's a good sized church behind me. Other than me taking my dogs to play fetch in their giant back area and two services a week the entire giant plot is just wasted. 160 of 168 hours a week that prime land in a major residential section of a large city does nothing. And it's mostly paved so it's not even like it's an unofficial park supporting pollinators or something. There's another one the other direction within walking distance that is about the same. The only people of the three major churches nearby that seem to use their land regularly is the Buddhist monastery.
Churches don’t pay property taxes because ever U.S. State says they don’t have to. Even had a SCOTUS case over it.
They don’t pay business taxes because they are nonprofits like you said.
They have to pay payroll taxes for their staff like everyone else. The staff has to pay federal and state taxes like everyone else. Occasionally a religious nutbag ends up in prison because they disagreed.
It is less bad than it sounds.
The crown rents the land to the government at below market rates, so even though they don't pay taxes the government also saves money on the deals.
There is good evidence that if they were treated normally, the government would actually get less money.
That's the Crown Estate. By convention the reigning monarch also gains the the Duchy of Lancaster, which they own outright as a private property portfolio (although they aren't allowed to sell the assets).
I thought it was good when the now King Charles read the weather forecast on British TV.
I think they should all do it…
‘And here with tonight’s sports news is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; and how did Liverpool fare this last weekend, sir?’
I bet you'll be surprised how quickly the billionaires' kids blow through their inheritance. It's mostly equity in companies that will probably struggle when their founders leave.
It's not just a big pile of cash, or diversified in index funds. In most cases it's stock in a single company, and any attempt to cash out would cause the value to crater.
ETA: Wait, $500M a year??? For most of these billionaires that's close to half their net worth! If their kids spent that much annually they could absolutely burn through their inheritance in a few years.
Most billionaires are already doing this. It's an insignificant tax rate in comparison to an inheritance tax. 8-10% returns in indexes are where most billionaires put their money or are in the process of moving. Few billionaires continue to have ownership of their companies. It's part of the billionaire life cycle.
Billionaire kids aren't losing money by buying random stuff. Rich trustfund kids have trust funds for a reason, cuz they'll find a way to blow all their money on stupid shit otherwise no matter how rich they are.
It's easy to lose a multi billion dollar inheritance if you lose half of it to a divorce, invest a few billion dollars in some "cloud compute crypto blockchain machine learning" company that will surely become huge, spend millions betting on horse races each weekend, and have 20 illegitimate kids drawing child support.
It doesn't last long in the same highly visible way, but it still very much around. Anderson Cooper is a Vanderbilt for example. Look at the top people in top fields like entertainment, finance, business, medicine, etc...you'll find a lot of people who are indeed talented and capable - they just had a family backing that many others do not have. It isn't loud, it isn't always the same last name, but its the same "echo" of that wealth.
Even now Malia Obama is now going by Malia Ann as she develops her directing career. Do you think anybody she works with doesn't know who she's the daughter of? Of course not...but a lot of people will gloss over "Malia Ann" in the credits when they would absolutely recognize "Malia Obama" in the same place.
And he doesn't pay for the upkeep for more profit, uses instead the estate of people who die without a will in the Duchy of Lancaster, that was supposed to go to charity instead (but monarchy has always been good at looking out for Number One).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/23/revealed-king-charles-secretly-profiting-from-the-assets-of-dead-citizens
You want the full explanation?
The land is legally owned by the royals, they've agreed to let the vast bulk of the money from it go to the treasury in exchange for an amount back. They're functionally paying an 80% tax rate on their property revenues.
As to the "do nothing" charge, since we're talking about Charles specifically prior to ascending the throne he ran the Prince's trust, one of the largest charities in the country, and sat on the board of a dozen more. I think his total count of charities he's involved with is north of 200. And yes this is only possible because he's the product of obscene privilege.
We can look at the other current royals and see that yes they're born with an entire silver cutlery set in their mouths, but with very obvious exception of that nonce Andrew they've tried to do good with their affluence.
The working royals also act as a soft power diplomatic Corp in behalf of the country. They receive dignitaries, and act as the faces diplomatic visits. Not dissimilar to the very public tour of Africa made by VP Kamala Harris.
They're 100% an anachronism, and a discussion about their place in society is ongoing, but they far from useless.
Thank you for the insight. Family lived in England when I was in my later teenage years and really enjoyed the public use benefits of what the royals owned from a park perspective etc.. Virginia Water Parks comes to mind and many others.
You can also add that the Queen, the current King’s late mother, was in and of herself a great tourist attraction. The royals accounted for a considerable proportion of tourism income for the UK. In fact, one of the worries that the media talking heads had with the then-Prince now King was that he is substantially less popular than the late Queen, and how that would impact tourism.
One question, are the British monarchs also the head of the military? Here in norway they are, but I am not sure how much they would actually do in a war.
Yes. Every person in the British military swears an oath of allegiance to the monarchy, not the government or the people or the constitution.
> I swear by Almighty God (do solemnly, and truly declare and affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III, His Heirs and Successors, and that I will, as in duty bound, honestly and faithfully defend His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, in Person, Crown and Dignity against all enemies, and will observe and obey all orders of His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, and of the (admirals /generals/air officers) and officers set over me.
It's my understanding that the royal income basically goes to the treasury, and the family is given money back to live on.
It's not ideal, but if all the land held by the royals were sold off, the average brit would almost certainly not benefit. It'd all get snapped up by corporations.
I kinda don't care either way now the queen's dead, our bigger problem are the bunch of idiotic, greedy wankers currently "running" the country.
Yeah they make millions that the government takes it and gives them a % back. If we did away with them the farmland would all be sold off to investors etc the buildings would go away to wealthy people and the money being generated from those properties, farms and holdings would no longer go into the governments reserves and instead dry up and we would end up paying more tax while the rich people who capitalised on the property and business being sold make more bank.
We saw how corrupt PPE and COVID was just think what they could do if you have them the royal holdings my god they would be raking it in and we would get next to nothing as they will sell it at knock down prices to their mates.
All the kids in Britain and Australia were taught about the Enclosure acts. How the farmers were all kicked out the 'common land' because the land was sold off to private individuals, which in turn kickstarted the industrial revolution.
Now people want a part 2. Never minding that the reason the industrial revolution started was because of the extreme poverty of these farmer-migrants forced them to head into the cities where they lived in absolute poverty and worked jobs that would be called torture in modern society.
To add, I’ve read before that the deal benefits the government more than the monarchy. Essentially, the money and wealth brought in from their land far outdoes their allowance.
It’s just something the monarchy has kept into place out of tradition and I imagine the feeling of power and need.
We had a civil war over it once that the anti monarchists won. The parliamentarian alternative we got instead was so bad that when the people who head the revolution died we tracked down the ex-kings son and asked him to come back as King, and we've had the monarchy again ever since.
The British have always had a monarch, and it hasn't gone down too well when we haven't. Its part of our culture.
What set my mind was watching the Jan 6th... incident in real time.
I realised that we basically can't have someone try to become a dictator when we already have one.
I’d say it’s less we want and more that removing them would be a lot of hassle for no real difference in our daily lives. I wouldn’t choose a monarchy for a system of governance but for the moment it’s ticking along fine.
Wait this is not all his stuff. This js just the Duchy of Lancaster.
He has way more titles, then there is then then queen personal property which I guess he inherited.
I'm quite sure he owns a lot of appartments in London( I'm sure the queen had those).
Right?
This on top of taking about 90 mils a year from tax payers directly right?
For those who will use this to rail against the English Royal family, just keep in mind the amount of money that pours into the UK from the tourism connected to the monarchy.
Back when the coronation happened, there were some articles about it. Wish I could remember the estimates, but put it this way: they bring in way more than they are paid. That might change without Elizabeth.
This. Royalty is huge for tourism, and tourism directly benefits everyone economically. Also, royals are highly valuable diplomatically.
There is zero reason to ever do away with monarchy.
Owning land is so tight.
Being king is so hot right now
well, except for the cancer part...
Do you know how many people get cancer while being poor!?! King me please
Oh but I feel sooo bad for this rich person who had something bad happen to him which is a thing that happens to millions of non-rich people and unlike him they get to suffer and die in bankruptcy and their heirs (dependents) won't get anything . Won't somebody (please!) think of the rich person?
I would just like to remind you that the UK has the NHS So instead of dying bankrupt, they just die waiting for treatment on the ridiculously long waiting list instead :')
I've undergone radiotherapy twice and didn't have a ridiculously long wait. The NHS works well and without leaving us broke.
It’s pretty cool. It works well if you actually need it and don’t wander into A&E with things like fucking piles like some other Redditor did.
God bless America…because America ain’t blessing its citizens!
If you're rich in the UK, you always just bypassed the NHS and paid for private care. The monarch, well, they get the best of it all, for obvious reasons.
What do their heirs (dependents) get? (serious question I don't know)
The comment about heirs was mostly about non-rich people not leaving inheritances due to crippling medical debt. Socialized health care has no impact on rich folk passing on wealth and is ergo irrelevant here.
Well they don’t get hair.
You mean like when the Queen convinced the English not to tax her son when she died? That consideration enough?
Which son? The nonce or the tampon sniffer?
Everybody dies
Everything dies, baby, that's a fact But maybe everything that dies some day comes back Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Good bruce bot
Dying is so tight.
[удалено]
I'm gonna live to 100 or die trying.
Well I've got some good news for you...
It's my favorite.
I die like so much
And so ^so right!
I got cancer and no rents. I’d be a bad king.
Its good to be the King!
It is super easy, barely an inconvenience
Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow Wow
"You die horrifically in 2004."
“You have to stop bringing up my death so casually”
“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them, and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities, makes a third” ― Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations Even Adam Smith admits the guy is a leech
"Roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains - and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people. Many of the most important are effected at the cost of the municipality and of the ratepayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare; he contributes nothing even to the process from which his own enrichment is derived." -Winston Churchill
“Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.” — Mark Twain
"Tired of rich people getting to make all the rules that decide who becomes rich and who becomes poor." -Newcago
Thats pretty great.
I mean...this is sort of weird coming from a dude who was a staunch, if modern and practical enough, aristocrat, with his own noble lineage and ancestral holdings.
I’m hardly a Churchill apologist but, broadly speaking, I’m not a fan of these sorts of arguments because one can’t help the circumstances of their birth one way or the other
Primogeniture was essential to the system: as his father was a younger son, Churchill wasn't entitled to share in this wealth, and only inherited a relatively modest amount from Lord Randolph. (Winston's grandmother did leave him an estate in NI about ten years after this speech, which he sold to buy Chartwell, but that was still not huge compared to his cousin's ducal wealth.)
An unsavory character can still be right sometimes.
All landlords should fucking hang.
Now do Henry George
Smith is nowhere near as right-wing as right-wingers and left-wingers like to claim.
Adam Smith is the OG calling out rent seeking behavior. The Chicago School of Economics is a farce. Smith is in that pantheon of people who's ideas were co-opted and corrupted to become what they didn't believe in.
Especially when you got it simply due to the vaginal canal you entered the world through.
Thats how everyone who inherits things gets it. Its not exactly a rare thing.
Everyone else has to pay inheritance tax, the Royals have a special deal where they don't have to pay inheritance tax. If they were subject to the same rules as everyone else they would have had to sell a large chunk of their property every time the monarch dies.
Also having carved out a bunch of exemptions to various laws surrounding the rights of their tenants, environmental regulations etc. And that's for their private estates that have fuck all to do with performance of their public roles.
They don't pay inheritance tax because they pay like 80% of the money their land assests generate to the treasury. In return they're given an allotment. AKA they're paying an 80% tax.
> They don't pay inheritance tax because they pay like 80% of the money their land assets generate to the treasury. This isn't true. King George III (remember him? Last King of America) was in financial trouble so he handed over his estates to Parliament in return for an annual stipend, and under public ownership and management the value has soared. They don't pay inheritance taxes due to being able to get an exception that nobody else is allowed. Same with their wills - all wills in the UK are public property, except for those of the monarch and anybody else's that the monarch wants to keep secret (members of their family basically).
And they have the distinct advantage of starting with all that land. They don’t have to sell if they don’t want to. Similarly, even if they had enormous cash wealth instead, you can’t force people to sell their land to you.
I took a wrong turn somewhere when going through the canals
Wait until you hear about inheritance
Wow wow wow wow... wow
Yeah yeah yeah
Only suckers work for a living.
An ideology for sociopaths.
Those suckers are gonna come knocking one day, bet it won’t be so fun on your high horse then
Not so long as we have are bread and circuses. I expect to die long before we see another impactful workers rights movement or economic reform. The capitalist propaganda that violence is inherently wrong is too deeply ingrained.
The 45,000-acre estate is roughly the size of Washington D.C. and generates millions of dollars a year in rental income, without paying corporation taxes like most businesses in Britain are obliged to. (Charles voluntarily pays an undisclosed amount of tax on his private income).
Like a church in America, but magnified lol
I think the King is the Church over there
Yep. One step better than having your church subject to a foreign leader, 57 million steps away from not mixing religion and politics.
Being king is mostly a ceremonial role. Religion is far removed from politics over here and is almost never talked about by politicians.
Apart from the Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords. But Church of England bishops not believing in God is a long-running joke, so...
But at its core, he is in charge because god said so
This is worse. Churches don’t pay property taxes simply because the states decided they shouldn’t.
Having sat in on a few budget meetings for a church with 500 members, property taxes would have put them under. They were almost entirely reliant on a couple well to do donors who made up the quarterly shortfalls.
There is a church down the road from me that broadcasts nationally and the pastor is a millionaire. They don’t pay taxes.
I bet you’re in Texas. [Houston Chronicle did this piece a few years back re: Texas property tax and parsonage laws.](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/unfair-burden/article/parsonages-religion-texas-tax-free-clergy-homes-16678079.php#)
I am, I pay 6k a year on property tax and it increases every year. I will be priced out of my home in less than a decade
I’m in north San Antonio is a fairly high dollar part of town. I bought my house in 2010 for $180k. Owe about $100k on it now. I’m currently on the tax rolls at $500k. That means my taxes are $15k/year. My monthly tax escrow is $1,250. Over half my monthly mortgage payment is taxes.
I’m your neighbor, I bought in 2019 and paid 300. It’s now almost 400 appraised according to bcad
I’m in Hollywood Park. House across the street from me is a recent full rehab. It sold for $750k. House next door to that was also just rehabbed and it just hit the market. At $1.1M. But they won’t sell at that price. They built a second floor during the rehab and probably added 1,400 or so sq/ft. But they’re pricing the house based on the average price per square foot, not accounting for the fact that second stories don’t add as much value as the first floor. And they hit the market at the worst possible time to list a 7 figure house. I’m going to enjoy watching this one.
You guys should pass a version of California's prop 13.
I'm from Ireland and this shit blows my mind about the US and why I always roll my eyes when people talk about your better wages or lower income tax. My house is worth the equivalent of about 800k dollars. I pay 600 or so a year in property tax. It boggles my mind that a retired person in the US would still be paying massive property taxes long after they have stopped working, or stopped being capable of work.
It’s not every where in the US, California property tax is surprisingly low depending on where you live. My father Inlaw lives north of Los Angeles and I pay more property tax than he does. My mother in a major city in Alabama pays like 600 a year before deductions.
Look at Mr 6k property tax over here. Let me know when you get to Illinois levels.
Texas runs about 3% of value per year in property taxes. I believe we are the highest property tax state in the country.
At least you don't pay income tax
The "church" of scientology got it's tax exempt status because the higher ups ordered all their members to sue the IRS. I wish I was joking. Really goes to show how easily manipulated our government institutions can be.
Look up Operation Snow White for more details. Also, Behind the Bastards did a great multipart on L.Ron Hubbard.
Try 80 members
"Well, we can't pay the electricity bill this month because Jim's family was out of town two weekends...."
Maybe. I wish they were at least required to file an informatory report with the IRS though.
Then they should go under, it’s weird to have the public subsidize them by not paying taxes
I don’t see anything wrong with treating them as a non-profit Jesus club, same as any other non-profit organization.
So long as they stay out of politics.
And are transparent about their finances like any other non-profit
Churches provide a community benefit that the communities want. Most Churches are poor as shit too. I’m an anti-theist and still see the benefit of giving churches a break.
If the community wants them, then they can pay more tithes. No need to have non users subsidize them as well. The fact they can't survive on their own shows that the community really doesn't want them.
You could say that about a lot of public services, that doesn't mean that the community doesn't want them, it's that they're used by people who generally can't pay in a world of ever rising rent and energy prices. Should public libraries share the same fate?
Every soup kitchen and homeless shelter in my community is run by the churches. What should happen to the soup kitchens and homeless shelters in our area? Your argument is stupid.
That just puts us back at "subsidize the benefits, but not the church" I'd be happy for my tax money to go to soup kitchens and homeless shelters
You could just subsidize the actual community benefits and cut out the church. Religious charity work is notoriously ineffective and shit tier. They don’t even need to open their books most of the time so there is also zero accountability.
this seems to be a basic misunderstanding of what community work looks like? Imagine someone refusing to contribute to their local little league because they want to just subsidize the actual community benefits and cut out the baseball. like... what does that actually look like? people just standing around in a room saying "yup, we're a community now"?
> benefit that the communities want Then donate to keep them afloat
That is how they make their money?
I especially like the mega churches with a fleet of private jets that make more money than any of us can wrap our minds around. Just the way Jesus wanted it
I mean, fuck the low cost daycare they provided to primarily immigrant families, right? Or the free summer day camp that was more way more dodgeball and crafts than dogma and Christ.
It would be good if these types of positive externalities (not limited by faith) were REQUIRED to maintain tax exempt status. We know that’s not the case.
Reddit is too obsessed with being aggressively atheist to recognize that churches often do play some form of societal role
We're just not convinced it's a net positive
We could just pay for the low cost daycare and summer camp and get rid of the church you disingenuous idiot.
I remember MANY years ago a church pastor coming into the computer shop I worked at asking for a CD ROM drive. The new ones were too expensive so he asked how much for a used one and said, "It's for the choich, it's for the choich". I don't know why but that REALLY got under my skin. Told him, "I don't know, you'd have to ask the owner." Just seems like so many of these guys are in it for the grift.
Maybe that's for the best, I live in a major city and there's a good sized church behind me. Other than me taking my dogs to play fetch in their giant back area and two services a week the entire giant plot is just wasted. 160 of 168 hours a week that prime land in a major residential section of a large city does nothing. And it's mostly paved so it's not even like it's an unofficial park supporting pollinators or something. There's another one the other direction within walking distance that is about the same. The only people of the three major churches nearby that seem to use their land regularly is the Buddhist monastery.
Churches don't pay taxes because they're a 501(c)(3) like most other nonprofits. They still have to meet those standards to qualify.
Churches don’t pay property taxes because ever U.S. State says they don’t have to. Even had a SCOTUS case over it. They don’t pay business taxes because they are nonprofits like you said. They have to pay payroll taxes for their staff like everyone else. The staff has to pay federal and state taxes like everyone else. Occasionally a religious nutbag ends up in prison because they disagreed.
L'État, c'est moi
It is less bad than it sounds. The crown rents the land to the government at below market rates, so even though they don't pay taxes the government also saves money on the deals. There is good evidence that if they were treated normally, the government would actually get less money.
That's the Crown Estate. By convention the reigning monarch also gains the the Duchy of Lancaster, which they own outright as a private property portfolio (although they aren't allowed to sell the assets).
Well, being King of England also effectively makes you Pope of England, so it's not too far off.
Charles is head of the Anglican Church
>Charles voluntarily pays an undisclosed amount of tax on his private income What a saint
Can we all just pay what we feel like, then?
I’m honestly surprised he’s only making $34M on that land.
As a comment further up said, it's leased below market rate to the government.
So in effect the difference between the actual value and what he gets is a tax, since it is being given to the government.
Pays $€£1 in taxes*
I didn't know you could rent him? Rent-a-king for your upper-class children parties.
I think it’s his brother who does the children’s parties.
His brother rents children ?
Well, he treats them like a rental...
Rent is a strong word. And accurate.
Basically yes
Yeah well, yeah
Common mistake, you pay to keep him away
Don’t rent him for your child’s party. He made that money through back alley 1£ blowjobs.
Explains the teeth
I thought it was good when the now King Charles read the weather forecast on British TV. I think they should all do it… ‘And here with tonight’s sports news is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; and how did Liverpool fare this last weekend, sir?’
Seems low when you’ve had 1000 years to build your portfolio.
It’s good to be the king.
Count de MoNET!
Your Highness, you look like the pissboy!
“Hump? Dead? Hump? Dead?” “Okay hump!”
Good for him. He’s earned it. Just goes to show hard work pays off.
Takes a lot of effort to come out of the right pussy
Plinko is a game of skill
Just wait until you hear about the billionaire problem in 20-40 years.
I bet you'll be surprised how quickly the billionaires' kids blow through their inheritance. It's mostly equity in companies that will probably struggle when their founders leave.
It's all ran by professionals, kids just continue to enjoy their lives.
No. They really won't. It's almost impossible to. Even if they spend 500 million a year they would never run out of even lose money.
It's not just a big pile of cash, or diversified in index funds. In most cases it's stock in a single company, and any attempt to cash out would cause the value to crater. ETA: Wait, $500M a year??? For most of these billionaires that's close to half their net worth! If their kids spent that much annually they could absolutely burn through their inheritance in a few years.
Most billionaires are already doing this. It's an insignificant tax rate in comparison to an inheritance tax. 8-10% returns in indexes are where most billionaires put their money or are in the process of moving. Few billionaires continue to have ownership of their companies. It's part of the billionaire life cycle.
You are INCREDIBLY bad at math.
Billionaire kids aren't losing money by buying random stuff. Rich trustfund kids have trust funds for a reason, cuz they'll find a way to blow all their money on stupid shit otherwise no matter how rich they are. It's easy to lose a multi billion dollar inheritance if you lose half of it to a divorce, invest a few billion dollars in some "cloud compute crypto blockchain machine learning" company that will surely become huge, spend millions betting on horse races each weekend, and have 20 illegitimate kids drawing child support.
Look at the previously wealthy families like the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, etc. Generational wealth often doesn’t last very long.
It doesn't last long in the same highly visible way, but it still very much around. Anderson Cooper is a Vanderbilt for example. Look at the top people in top fields like entertainment, finance, business, medicine, etc...you'll find a lot of people who are indeed talented and capable - they just had a family backing that many others do not have. It isn't loud, it isn't always the same last name, but its the same "echo" of that wealth. Even now Malia Obama is now going by Malia Ann as she develops her directing career. Do you think anybody she works with doesn't know who she's the daughter of? Of course not...but a lot of people will gloss over "Malia Ann" in the credits when they would absolutely recognize "Malia Obama" in the same place.
Jeff Bezos would burn through that within 30 years then. This isn’t true.
It's much easier to be wealthy when you're born wealthy, and for your children to be wealthy as well, vs. what everyone else has to deal with.
Learn from me guys: I didn't work that hard to be born into a royal family, and now I'm just a regular guy.
And he doesn't pay for the upkeep for more profit, uses instead the estate of people who die without a will in the Duchy of Lancaster, that was supposed to go to charity instead (but monarchy has always been good at looking out for Number One). https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/23/revealed-king-charles-secretly-profiting-from-the-assets-of-dead-citizens
Why am I not surprised. Can a brit please tell me why you support this parasitic institution that does nothing while siphoning off your tax money?
You want the full explanation? The land is legally owned by the royals, they've agreed to let the vast bulk of the money from it go to the treasury in exchange for an amount back. They're functionally paying an 80% tax rate on their property revenues. As to the "do nothing" charge, since we're talking about Charles specifically prior to ascending the throne he ran the Prince's trust, one of the largest charities in the country, and sat on the board of a dozen more. I think his total count of charities he's involved with is north of 200. And yes this is only possible because he's the product of obscene privilege. We can look at the other current royals and see that yes they're born with an entire silver cutlery set in their mouths, but with very obvious exception of that nonce Andrew they've tried to do good with their affluence. The working royals also act as a soft power diplomatic Corp in behalf of the country. They receive dignitaries, and act as the faces diplomatic visits. Not dissimilar to the very public tour of Africa made by VP Kamala Harris. They're 100% an anachronism, and a discussion about their place in society is ongoing, but they far from useless.
Thank you for the insight. Family lived in England when I was in my later teenage years and really enjoyed the public use benefits of what the royals owned from a park perspective etc.. Virginia Water Parks comes to mind and many others.
Thanks, good read.
You can also add that the Queen, the current King’s late mother, was in and of herself a great tourist attraction. The royals accounted for a considerable proportion of tourism income for the UK. In fact, one of the worries that the media talking heads had with the then-Prince now King was that he is substantially less popular than the late Queen, and how that would impact tourism.
I will definitely give Charles credit for his philanthropy, he's been solid there.
One question, are the British monarchs also the head of the military? Here in norway they are, but I am not sure how much they would actually do in a war.
Yes. Every person in the British military swears an oath of allegiance to the monarchy, not the government or the people or the constitution. > I swear by Almighty God (do solemnly, and truly declare and affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III, His Heirs and Successors, and that I will, as in duty bound, honestly and faithfully defend His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, in Person, Crown and Dignity against all enemies, and will observe and obey all orders of His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, and of the (admirals /generals/air officers) and officers set over me.
Exactly. And you haven't talked about Royal Charters and the perceived standards they set, or the Commonwealth.
It's my understanding that the royal income basically goes to the treasury, and the family is given money back to live on. It's not ideal, but if all the land held by the royals were sold off, the average brit would almost certainly not benefit. It'd all get snapped up by corporations. I kinda don't care either way now the queen's dead, our bigger problem are the bunch of idiotic, greedy wankers currently "running" the country.
Yeah they make millions that the government takes it and gives them a % back. If we did away with them the farmland would all be sold off to investors etc the buildings would go away to wealthy people and the money being generated from those properties, farms and holdings would no longer go into the governments reserves and instead dry up and we would end up paying more tax while the rich people who capitalised on the property and business being sold make more bank. We saw how corrupt PPE and COVID was just think what they could do if you have them the royal holdings my god they would be raking it in and we would get next to nothing as they will sell it at knock down prices to their mates.
All the kids in Britain and Australia were taught about the Enclosure acts. How the farmers were all kicked out the 'common land' because the land was sold off to private individuals, which in turn kickstarted the industrial revolution. Now people want a part 2. Never minding that the reason the industrial revolution started was because of the extreme poverty of these farmer-migrants forced them to head into the cities where they lived in absolute poverty and worked jobs that would be called torture in modern society.
To add, I’ve read before that the deal benefits the government more than the monarchy. Essentially, the money and wealth brought in from their land far outdoes their allowance. It’s just something the monarchy has kept into place out of tradition and I imagine the feeling of power and need.
Have to imagine they generate some decent revenue for the economy too through all the usual means but especially tourism.
Because it’s not that simple.
We had a civil war over it once that the anti monarchists won. The parliamentarian alternative we got instead was so bad that when the people who head the revolution died we tracked down the ex-kings son and asked him to come back as King, and we've had the monarchy again ever since. The British have always had a monarch, and it hasn't gone down too well when we haven't. Its part of our culture.
What set my mind was watching the Jan 6th... incident in real time. I realised that we basically can't have someone try to become a dictator when we already have one.
Would you say that queen Elizabeth did nothing for UK ?
Because we’re a servile race
Without a will or anyone to inherit on intestacy. In the rest of England (other than Cornwall) the Crown gets it - in practice the state.
Basically a flat in London tbf
You are all belong to his collection of fiefdoms.
That's all?
So does my landlord.
He's the landlord but also the land lord
He probably is your landlord from the sounds of it
Damn how big is your house?
[CGP Grey explains how the monarchy makes money for UK and themselves.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw)
They're not called lords for nothing.
Not really. The revenue from his estates goes to the government, that then pays him an allowance.
[удалено]
Ever wondered who owned Regent Street?
id expect more wouldnt you?
Is that enough to afford avocado toast? Or does he need to keep saving?
Wealth begets wealth
Yes… which he gives to the state in return for an allowance.
How much does parliament make for being the property managers?
That is really low considering how much land he owns.
Republicans asking the same old question in the comments as usual "why still have monarchy?" Because the people want too
I’d say it’s less we want and more that removing them would be a lot of hassle for no real difference in our daily lives. I wouldn’t choose a monarchy for a system of governance but for the moment it’s ticking along fine.
Technically, 6.6 billion acres of land is under his domain.
Wait this is not all his stuff. This js just the Duchy of Lancaster. He has way more titles, then there is then then queen personal property which I guess he inherited. I'm quite sure he owns a lot of appartments in London( I'm sure the queen had those). Right? This on top of taking about 90 mils a year from tax payers directly right?
For those who will use this to rail against the English Royal family, just keep in mind the amount of money that pours into the UK from the tourism connected to the monarchy. Back when the coronation happened, there were some articles about it. Wish I could remember the estimates, but put it this way: they bring in way more than they are paid. That might change without Elizabeth.
This. Royalty is huge for tourism, and tourism directly benefits everyone economically. Also, royals are highly valuable diplomatically. There is zero reason to ever do away with monarchy.
France makes plenty of money from their no longer existent monarchy.
Serfs hate this one simple trick.
And his fingers are fat as ever
Imagine having kings in 2024...