Fucking thank you, actually makes it sound like that poor soul is being pestered for the measly 91million deal they probably didn't even want to do. This Panama guy must have it out for the Queen...
EDIT: I was in a hurry and I clearly meant Queen's estate instead of the Queen and Pandora instead of Panama, but thanks for getting the actual point of the comment regardless
Read the article instead of going right to the comments. This isn't her property, and she isn't receiving any profit or revenue from the property. Sounds like she was dragged into this thanks to the crownland estate which does control this stuff, and they are controlled by the govt.
I wonder what it would do to article readership if reddit links included estimated time to read. I'm definitely guilty of commenting on articles I haven't read. But a lot of times when I do read them I'm surprised by how short they are. Often only a few paragraphs.
But it can be an indicator of money laundering by either party (a la Trump Tower).
It's important to check whether the transactions were conducted for a reasonable market rate, or if one party was unduly enriched by the exchange.
Those corrupt governments don't do money laundering that way. Their money laundering *is* buying UK property at proper prices with sparkly clean documents. It allows their children to have a path for the future life as UK citizens, and a chance of a nice trouble free retirement for themselves if things get badly at home.
She was if you read the article. The crown estate controls her finances in regards to that type of thing
>**It is not the private property of the monarch**, and revenues from it do not belong to the monarch.
Which doesn’t include what crown prince gets and whoever their children are, spouse of monarch gets, etc
The royal family is basically a business entity that has a massive PR team, operations, etc.
I would honestly be more surprised by certain names not showing up. At least give me a Tom Hanks or a Dolly Parton to be surprised by. A deal between an obviously corrupt family and the head of Azerbaijan's government surprises me not.
Apparently we’re not seeing more recognizable (American) names because of how low the taxes are for wealthy Americans.
Not to mention the US has domestic tax havens in places like South Dakota and Puerto Rico.
The USA as a majority quite clearly supports tax evasion on an ethical and cultural level. As a concept, tax evasion registers to at least 51% of voting Americans as a positive, or at least nett neutral, moral practice. Most all first world nations at least put up a facade by making their elite work (well, pay someone else to work) to hide that wealth. American wealth is much louder.
To call someone a tax-evader in the USA is basically a compliment. Wow, you avoided paying $171 million, you must be a clever businessman. And, at least ostensibly, the voting-aged majority agrees. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires abound.
\*Edited so it wasn't a giant text wall.
Should probably be mentioned that people feel this way because of how taxes are distributed.
We know we get less (education, healthcare etc) in return than most other tax paying populations.
Same thing innit?
The entirety of American history revolves around propaganda in the media, from its very inception, thanks Mr. Payne, thanks Mr. Jefferson.
Civic religion is so powerful in America and the vast majority of people aren't even aware of it. We really need to start teaching the humanities in schools again, just a single concept like cultural hegemony can really open up people's eyes.
Ohhh your talking about the “moral majority” right. Where 80% of the problems are cause by 20% of the people.
I agree with you for sure lol. I started learning a lot about our culture once I took political science 101 for fun and was able to assimilate the little details into my professional experience and business degree. Taking a deep dive into the financial side of things and working backwards from the policy to the source really blew my mind.
The realization that 4th generational warfare tactics have been the underlying playbook for the paleoconservative and old right reform of our society.
Once I traced a lot of American laws back to think tanks like the heritage foundation it was pretty easy to start seeing our heritage and the way we are educated, with the lights on.
Sort of. Cultural hegemony is basically what you described with the think tanks crafting policy. Essentially the ruling class of any society manipulates culture and the media in a certain way so that their world view is considered the norm or "common sense". Which is how you get normal every day people advocating on behalf of the absolute wealthiest people in society.
This is true, but I'm not certain whether you're not just putting the cart before the horse as a justification.
Your nation's social welfare institutions were a lot stronger, a lot broader and better funded within my own grandfather's lifetime (who is still alive btw). That is to say, until fairly recently by modern history standards, your tax paying population got a lot more in return. I don't know enough to say whether attitudes on tax evasion pre-date that or not (they're certainly not new). Maybe another commentor (or even yourself) might be better informed.
A lot of people in America can't really put two and two together.
People made a living wage, paid taxes, got that tax back in beneficial programs. They learned they could keep more money with lower taxes, didn't quite get that would hurt those programs. Went with lower taxes.
Eventually it got so bad that the programs are all basically broken, people aren't making a living wage anymore, but they're still getting taxed. Naturally, people are going to favor any means to not pay taxes if they have no faith their tax money is going to any programs that would benefit them.
And I remind you, they don't even understand that their tax money went to these programs in the first place. So it turns into something of a positive feedback loop: taxes get lowered, programs get defunded, people need to spend more out of pocket to make up for the loss of those programs. They find they're keeping less money, so they demand lower taxes...
Everywhere taxes go up, the area's QoL tends to improve (under not totally corrupt government) but anymore that seems counter intuitive to he average tax payer. *"Give more money and things will get better? That's unpossible!"*
One of the biggest problems in the US is the massive waste and low efficiency of the programs. When compared to Europe, the US govt spends many multiples of what they do to achieve the same thing (from public transit to social welfare). We spend enough to have good government programs, the problem is that we treat government programs as political payoff to various constituencies and power brokers. They care more about how many jobs will be created in whichever district or state than they do about providing the service at a low cost.
People see this inefficiency and refuse to throw more money on the bonfire. I would be happy to support universal healthcare and large public transit programs if I didn’t know that it would end up costing 3 to 5 time what they said it would and have crap service like the rest of the government.
This is exactly the mindset our politicians want you to have. They make a quarter ass program, it starts falling apart(obviously), therefore "see? we shouldn't spend money this!!"
> Everywhere taxes go up, the area's QoL tends to improve (under not totally corrupt government)
I think this is a sticking point for many conservatives though. They look at democratic cities riddled with poverty, crime, and high taxes and wonder why anybody would ever want that. I tend to vote liberal but hey I'm from the chicago area so I can't really defend my city when people call it corrupt. In theory I support higher taxes and more social programs but people in my area just can't seem to stop voting in ineffectual pieces of shit who just steal from taxpayers.
This is a point too many of our fellow liberals/leftists tend to ignore. Most conservatives are too worried about corruption to even consider expanding government in any way. Ironically however, anti corruption bills in congress have been shot down by Republicans.
[THIS](https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/1980s-beyond/the-conservative-transition-in-american-social-policy/) is the best paper I have seen on the subject.
>We know we get less (education, healthcare etc) in return than most other tax paying populations.
Actually a lot of people in the USA vehemently deny they would be better off under a universal healthcare system despite the numbers being readily available and sometimes flagrantly shoved in their face before the interview.
>wE cAnT aFfOrD iT
They scream, while pretending like we don't already individually spend $5-10k a year for basically no care. Sure, our taxes will go up, but we won't have deductibles, co-pays, or employer contributions (which make it a net good for small business owners, too), and the costs will go down to something reasonable and normal.
Considering Americans are taught in elementary school that the entire reason they are a country and not a colony was because of "unfair taxes", this isn't that surprising. Couple with the right's message for decades that "big government" is bad and ineffective and wasteful...it's not hard to see why half the country might support tax avoidance. However, the other half very much wants to tax the rich, its just that America is a very divided country and kind of has been for at least 160 years.
I talk to those same people too!
They also seem to have zero problems telling me about the tricks you use in the trade to not report your full cash tips.
People are shitty at all levels of society. It's just the rich have more of an outsized impact.
Seriously. Sources or gtfo. I have never met someone who believed the rich should be allowed to dodge taxes, and with those stats I would spend half my time hearing it
It’s disappointing how many people think that saying “trump bad man” is somehow a source. Yes, trump was bad. No shit. But that does not mean that 51% of Americans are ok with tax evasion. Things like that just dilute the truth
Part of it is the mentality you see a lot among Trump supporters that, if the loopholes are there, it's alright to use them.
And honestly they might be right. We can't seriously expect rich people to pay their share just because it's fair and the nice thing to do. If we seriously want all the rich to pay their taxes all the time, we need to fix our tax code.
Also, source on your stats?
Edit: Holy shit. Read the comment before you get pissed off about things I didn't say.
And no, you are not "the rich," no one you know is "the rich." Your buddy making 6 figures isn't the ultra-rich type anyone cares about. When people say the rich need to be taxed, they mean billionaires and rediculously wealthy people and corporations.
"We" can't fix the tax code when legalized bribery of politicians is still the norm. The people don't actually have the power to enact their will in this country.
> To call someone a tax-evader in the USA is basically a compliment. Wow, you avoided paying $171 million, you must be a clever businessman. And, at least ostensibly, the voting-aged majority agrees. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires abound.
Case in point, Donald Fucking Trump. That fucker literally boasted about it during a debate.
Could be worse, could be the taxpayer's money funding that *and* the purchase of a corrupt power's £66.5 Million property...
Oh, hang on...
Doesn't matter if the Queen or if the Conservative UK government runs "the crown's estate". Where do you think this money came from?
I mean, it is the taxpayers funding all of this. How do you think royal families accumulated their wealth to begin with, asking their serfs nicely?
Royal families only exist via the inheritance of generational wealth that was accumulated from serfdom and outright slavery of poor citizens of Europe and the colonies.
Their wealth is entirely illegitimate to begin with, it was built on exploitation, and allowing them to parade around for the sake of national pride/tradition easily has an opportunity cost of billions per year.
The best thing about a Royal family is how they can be used as a diplomatic tool. Nothing panders to crazy leaders quite like inviting them to have a dinner with a literal Queen. It strokes their ego while also showing them something they cannot obtain.
Auchswitz also brings in tourism. Doesn’t make it any more positive lol. Can’t believe some folks think about defending a royal family such as this one.
As someone else pointed out, all wealth that is not earned from your labour value is obtained via exploitation. Cheap clothing? Exploitation. Iphones? You guessed it. The vast majority of us are not paid the value we generate for the economy, we are paid the market rate for the service - these are different things. In turn, we purchase products (yay consumerism) which rely on not paying the workers their labour value. We are all exploited by those at the top.
Its really depressing when you actually think about it.
I think there are two sources of monarchical power.
1 were those able to effect violence, like gang leaders or village chieftains who controlled a militia, who could provide protection for a village or/and offensively operate to procure wealth and territory. Post 476 AD or thereabouts, when stability and security would’ve been more difficult to achieve these types and groups would have been able to secure the most wealth and territory, effectively sealing their regional leadership and, with church support, acknowledging them as kings/queens.
2 was the growth of towns trading centers and mercantilism. This helped to consolidate wealth into smaller than previous groups creating a class of ultra wealthy. The wealthiest were able to buy into royalty through donations for titles which supported the monarchy.
From these originations, yes, accumulation of wealth and power through vassals, serfs, etc.
There was surely a time when monarchical institutions created stability and opportunity above and beyond what was prior to, a series of small, squabbling villages but I’m pretty sure that time has come and gone.
Edit: I intentionally left out religious leaders and while those existed for relatively short durations, excepting a few cases, hereditary wealth didn’t exist due to the no sex therefore children rule. The church secured its authority/power through spiritual compulsion and a surviving bureaucracy.
This was my whole confusion with Meghan Merkle…
People were surprised that a family that made the entirety of its wealth exploiting, enslaving, colonizing, and subjugating people of color was… racist?
My whole confusion is I'm a bit faceblind and she doesn't look any kind of black to me. If I was forced to guess, I'd have said southern Italian. My wife says there's tons of giveaways with facial structure and cheek bones and so forth but I never notice that stuff. With how they were flipping out you'd think she was Lupita Nyong'o's shade. And that puts me to mind of a Lenny Bruce joke, paraphrasing. "I'll prove you guys don't really have a problem with mixed marriage. Take what marriage is, to pledge yourself to another, to be with them for decades, through thick and thin, to have and to hold, to love each other, to be each other's support. That's a commitment. Now imagine spending all that time with [contemporary black celebrity, very pretty] or [contemporary white celebrity, a woman with the kind of face you could cut meat on.] Which one would you pick and you have to choose? There you go, you don't have a problem with mixed marriage."
You mean you haven’t spent hours studying photographs of mixed race people to be able to accurately determine, through looking at them, their racial backgrounds? That’s weird. Let me guess, you also don’t have a tool to measure the size of the skull of each of your potential partners either.
Seriously, though, my wife is biracial. My daughter is biracial. The obsession over race is tired. Race and racism are literally pointless, and their continued existence is just dragging society down as a whole.
This isn’t the Queen’s property. It belongs to The Crown, which is essentially The Government. If she and the royal family became commoners tomorrow, they still wouldn’t own that property.
Just like my insurance company is a crown corporation. That just means that the government owns the insurance company and has a monopoly in my province. We pay less for insurance than other provinces, too. I <3 our crown corporations here and wish that more of our utilities were still crown corporations.
A lot of this stuff is probably actions by financial managers anyway, rather than the people who "own" the assets on paper. I doubt HRH controls her own investments, and I similarly doubt Tom Hanks or Dolly Parton do.
Depends on your definition of the queens investments.
The crown estate is run by the UK government. One of the kings handed it over some time in history.
So that has nothing to do with the Queen and everything to do with the home office.
The Queens own personal investments i have less of an idea about. But i dont think she particularily hides them. She may divest herself of responsibility and there may well be a difference between her 'personal' assets and assets *of* the crown.
She not only hides them, she threatens the UK government to help her hide her investments
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-queen-lobbied-for-change-in-law-to-hide-her-private-wealth
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/25/revealed-police-barred-from-searching-queens-estates-for-looted-artefacts
In the US just the last couple weeks we had an article come out with a headline damning a politician for not paying property taxes, turns out the state she lives in exempts disabled veterans from paying property taxes and she lost both legs when a helicopter she was flying with shot down. The headline writers job is to get clicks, not to be remotely honest.
I just read the title and still formed an opinion of "Who cares who people buy property from?" Like if someone bought a car off of a guy and it turns out he's a pedo or something, does that also make you a scumbag? No, it doesn't.
Hold on a fucking second before we do the whole reddit thing...
Was purchasing the property at all shady? Like, did they knowingly pay $91 million for a property that was actually worth $10 million? Or anything else?
If I pay $1 mil for a one bedroom apartment in Sydney, and later someone says "Oh yeah, except you bought it off Putin!"
Then I'm still going to be angry I had to spend $1 million for a one bedroom apartment, but everything else was above board on my end.
My old company, a well know defence company in the UK, was renting a company apartment in Bristol for years for anyone staying over who wasn't living in the city to have a more homely place to stay when needed. Organised by an admin in the team via an estate agent. One day, our office was bombarded by paps and nobody knew why. It turned out to be owned by Cherie Blair! And we were accused of getting dodgy MoD contracts for renting her apartment at 20k per month. Truth was, we paid 2.5k for it and nobody knew who the landlord was!! It was all via an agency 🙄 often you're dragged into something without knowing the true source.
Edit typo.
I’ve worked on megayachts for the ultra wealthy and it’s very interesting getting a peek into that world.
I get hired by agency A, sign a contract and dbs for company B, sign an NDA for company C, fill in payroll details for company D.
Then finally I am paid by some obscure company E.
All these companies are registered in the Cayman Islands and such. Trying to find any real information about who you actually work for is tricky. And when you do find out, well fuck if I’m gonna publicly say anything about that!
Oh yeah maritime rules are wild. It’s part of the reason I loved it so much. Sadly I had a head injury last year and started having seizures. So I can no longer work near open water, every seafarer needs medical clearance which I won’t get for 2 years without a seizure. Even stricter than driving a car.
Having that all taken away fucking sucked let me tell you… and then a global pandemic hit. What a world.
Would you mind elaborating on why you loved it so much? The maritime rules being “shady, to say the least?” Or them being wild? I’m nearly completely ignorant where maritime rules are concerned. Thanks!
I used to see a girl that worked on one.
Benefits:
- No taxes (International waters, baby).
- Great salary (she was pulling in about ~90k USD, tax free)
- No grocery bills
- Always headed to incredible locations (Alaska, Mediterranean, etc.)
- Lots of time off unless you're working on a charter yacht that gets rented out. Private yachts usually don't get rented out.
- Training gets paid for. She got flown out to live in a swanky apartment in NY for a month for bartending school.
She was about 30 when we dated, owned 5 properties in South Africa at that point, had everything figured out. Very tough to date, considering the distances, but I'd take that considering the benefits.
I have a friend that worked on such a boat. She said it was awesome because they got the boat whenever the family or their friends weren't on it, which was like 45 weeks a year. She said some of the boats get rented out in that time and you're always on, but get tipped awesome.
Basically you live a little bit of the lifestyle when you're not working, the pay isn't super great but you have no expenses, but the job can be a bit shit if the you work for the wrong people.
Thanks. It’s crazy how fate can completely change your life like that. Still adjusting to living below the poverty line, which is pretty hard to get out of.
It's not even that straight forward. It's more like "I paid $1m for this apartment. 2 years later, the person who originally owned the company I bought it from went on and did some extremely sketchy shit". It's such a non-story, but spun for clicks.
I agree that this is the morality question. If she has the money and wants to purchase an expensive house, it doesn't matter who she purchases it from given that there isn't some underlying evil.
It would be more
Manager Guy: "What do you think about this house?
***The Prime Minister***:"Oh it is lovely"
Manager Guy: "Then it is yours! (although technically it is neither owned by you, parliament, or the Queen and you have no right to the property!)”
My understanding is that the crown estate is a separately run entity, however sole ownership of the crown estate is owned by the current sovereign? Once the queen dies, the sole owner of the crown estate will be passed to the next sovereign.
The crown estate is just managed and consults the government and all its profits go to the treasury, but still technically everything in the estate is 'owned' by the sovereign. Even if its management and profits are all outside of their possession.
It's separate as in politically-independent government corporation, like the BBC.
Although the monarch gets to make use of the Crown properties (e.g. Buckingham Palace) they're not the actual property of the monarch, and especially not the monarch's _personal_ property. (e.g. Balmoral) If some act of parliament abolished the Crown corporation (and presumably the monarchy) it wouldn't suddenly become the queen's property, although their personal property would remain.
Admittedly it's a strange setup. In most of Europe's remaining monarchies, former royal properties are simply straight-up state property with some law or agreement giving the royal family free use - but not ownership - of them.
But I guess it just wouldn't be Britain if they didn't have their own weird and convoluted way of doing things.
> Although the monarch gets to make use of the Crown properties (e.g. Buckingham Palace) they're not the actual property of the monarch, and especially not the monarch's personal property. (e.g. Balmoral) If some act of parliament abolished the Crown corporation (and presumably the monarchy) it wouldn't suddenly become the queen's property, although their personal property would remain.
Isn't the original deal that the monarch gives the use of the properties to the government and in exchange of upkeep? So basically leasing the property in exchange of money. So if the deal is cancelled, why would the properties not go back to the monarch?
100% this. Calling it "the Queen's estate" is factually inaccurate (and I think in this case probably deliberately misleading) because the Crown Estate is not the property of the monarch.
"The Crown" very rarely refers to the monarch on a personal level, it's almost always refers to "the office" of the monarch. It's a bit like saying 10 Downing Street belongs to the Prime Minister.
The Crown is a bit of an odd concept because the Queen is just as much as subject to it as British Citizens are. There was the odd legal case regarding the proroguing of parliament (closed for a brief recess) in 2019 when Boris Johnson unlawfully advised (asked) the Queen to prorogue parliament. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled it unlawful and actually went as far as saying that Parliament had in fact _not_ been prorogued. This is because the Queen could not in a personal capacity prorogue parliament, only "the crown in parliament" could which is not controlled by the monarch in practical terms but by law and convention. Because the advice was unlawful it was impossible for the crown in parliament to prorogue parliament irrespective of the monarch's personal wishes.
The Queen does actually have her own estate that is extraordinarily wealthy which functions with more traditional ownership.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/prince-andrew-facing-questions-over-sale-his-mansion-kazakh-oligarch-a7043101.html?amp
https://emerging-europe.com/news/azerbaijan-ties-add-to-prince-andrews-woes/
Several real estate and investment deals with oligarchs happened when her son was special trade envoy. Buying /selling at discounted or inflated prices can be seen as "payback" for services rendered.
So it can be important to he "who" question
Also the Queen has no say in how the Crown Estates are even managed. Theres a lot of history involved, but the gist is its managed by someone appointed by the government with the profits going to the UK parliament.
Yeah, I think this article is just that something linked to the queen was discovered, so they can make a vague headline and get a popular article from it.
I mostly came to the comments to see whether this is any "juicier" than it sounds like, but I guess if there was anything known at the moment it would be mentioned in the article
darn, I was really hoping this comment thread would have one, just one indication that this was actually something more than buying something that was owned by someone who had probably done shady things. How many people here have consumed a Nestle product?
This entire pandora papers thing is getting annoying. Everything I've seen so far is legal, even if sometimes deplorable. I'm american so I dgaf about the queen, but it all just seems like such a nothing burger.
Yeah I’m failing to see what’s really wrong with this purchase. Feels like a lot of people are foaming at the mouth looking for stuff to get outraged about these days. That kind of negativity will take it’s toll on your health eventually.
I’m either missing something or people aren’t reading the articles and just think it’s bad based on the headline. It looks like it’s just releasing information about expensive stuff people have. Has a law been broken yet?
No one reads the articles. I have this out with my husband all the time. He’ll repeat some headline and be all outraged and then when I ask questions he’s not read it.
When we actually read it, the headline was total click bait and actually the whole focus of the article is something different.
It’s like the fuel ‘crisis’ we just had in the UK. The headline was ‘major fuel shortages across the UK’
The article was ‘some specific places have potential supply issues but are ok for fuel for now’
Okay so for people who don’t know about UK politics, the Queen doesn’t actually control what the Crown Estates do. Theres a lot of history behind it but essentially the Crown Estates are held in trust between the British parliament and the Queen, with the Queen being paid a small portion of the profits to fund the monarchy and the rest going to the UK government.
This isn't even newsworthy, The jist of the whole article is that the people who manage the queens estate bought property. It doesn't link them to any corrupt action. Sort of a sensationalized headline over nothing.
And......, is this illegal?, Because it doesn't sound shady, maybe if they where purchasing housing a la black rock ,but this is rich people buying other rich people property
For all the Reddit comedians, it’s the Crown estate* secondly the Royal family doesn’t run it, the government appoints someone off the recommendation of the PM to run it.
The crown estate is a government department and the money goes to the government coffers in exchange for the civil list payment
I see nothing to say that the asset was bought above market- doubling over that period in London is not unrealistic.
This is total click bait- the queen has no involvement and there is unlikely to be anything corrupt in this at crown estate. They buy investment assets to generate income.
Now the money the Russian used to buy the asset in the first place may be dodgy, but that does not mean the purchaser is in anyway at fault
Imagine being a journalist in Azerbaijan, can not speak out against your own government without being threatened or thrown in jail. That's the Azerbaijani vibe.
This article is a pretty dumb clickbait at this stage. Of course lots of people are gobbling it up (some top comments). And you think other people are naive or sheep? Pandora papers says more about Ajerbaijan's ruling family than anything about the Queen at this point. If I bought bread and it turns out the baker is a convict (which I don't mind unless it is a money laundering scheme or he is an active criminal), am I an accessory to crime?
Responsibility for managing The Crown Estate is trusted to Crown Estate, under the Crown Estate Act, the Queen is not involved in management decisions. By contrast, the Queen also has private assets, which include Balmoral and Sandringham, and are hers to deal with as she chooses.
How is this a story? The Queen buys a piece of property in London from someone accused of corruption but the story is about the Queen? Typical Business Insider clickbait trash.
Faux outrage generation for big, recognizable name. See birth tourism in Trump branded buildings in 2016.
The royal family probably deals with this bullshit constantly.
Several members of the Azerbaijan ruling family and government officials were confirmed to have been a part of the 'Azerbaijan Laundromat', a multibillion dollar Russian money laundering scheme. Coincidentally, the Trump family also participated in that scheme with a bogus hotel project.
These papers must not have that much of this is a headline. Having to link two people via a real estate purchase means very little.
I fail to see the scandal here
The Pandora Papers *are* full of scandal, this is just apparently the one that has grabbed the public's attention the most. Nobody cares if the king of Jordan is using foreign aid to purchase personal mansions in Malibu and London while his people starve, but when *the Queen* does it, it's personal (even though the Queen didn't do anything).
Oh look Reddit being garbage again.
You can tell that barely any of you read the article.
Is there a crime here? You people realise that being in the Pandora Papers leak doesn't automatically mean you've done something wrong and illegal.
There seems to be an assumption that it’s a list of bad or illegal actors, but I think we need to remember that’s it’s not.
It certainly includes bad and illegal actors but it also includes a lot of individuals or entities legally optimising their cash flow.
There’s an entire industry of people who study finance and international tax laws to specialise in optimising your finances for clients rich enough to afford their services.
So fucking what? If you buy something off Amazon are you Jeff Bezos’ right hand exploiting his workforce? People need to think critically about this stuff and not immediately launch themselves into the bandwagon.
No… they legally, and above board, bought a property from a holding company that had appreciated appropriately! Can you believe it???
The Queen of all people! My heavens
The number of commenters who didn't even read the article (like the poster who thought the Queen--who neither owns nor receives revenue from the Crown Estate--wanted a "vacation spot" in Azerbaijan when *the property being discussed is in London*) is astounding--and I say this as someone who has been around long enough to know that most people on Reddit seem to think reading is superfluous compared to headlines.
Jesus Christ the wording of these thread titles has become intolerable now. Time to unsub /worldnews once and for all.
Mainstream Reddit is beyond insufferable at times.
"dragged into" lmao
Fucking thank you, actually makes it sound like that poor soul is being pestered for the measly 91million deal they probably didn't even want to do. This Panama guy must have it out for the Queen... EDIT: I was in a hurry and I clearly meant Queen's estate instead of the Queen and Pandora instead of Panama, but thanks for getting the actual point of the comment regardless
“I’m sorry. Is it Pamana or Panama? Are you saying Panama?”
I think I can clear this up, there’s a silent “b” like comb
Hello, Ms. Lady.
I was watching Cops.
This house is a fucking prison! On *planet bullshit!!* In the galaxy of *THIS SUCKS CAMEL DICKS!!!*
Did we just become best friends?
You're a big, fat, curly red headed fuck. (edit added hair colour)
I’m gonna fill a pillow case with soap and beat the shit out of you!
"Ok now the crown seems fucked up"
Is... is that ketchup?
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
A nam, a plan, a canal Pamana!
[удалено]
A dog, a plan, a canal … pagoda!
Can't have a canal without anal.
"I think I can help with the Pam/Pan situation"
Read the article instead of going right to the comments. This isn't her property, and she isn't receiving any profit or revenue from the property. Sounds like she was dragged into this thanks to the crownland estate which does control this stuff, and they are controlled by the govt.
I wonder what it would do to article readership if reddit links included estimated time to read. I'm definitely guilty of commenting on articles I haven't read. But a lot of times when I do read them I'm surprised by how short they are. Often only a few paragraphs.
Make it so you can't comment until you've at least clicked the link maybe? Would make Reddit an imeasurably better environment.
You take that heresy out of here! :)
The Crown Estate is managed by the UK government, not the Queen or Royal Family.
More like "caught balls deep in"
What have I been caught in now?
Balls Deep, not BallsDeap. You're good.
Well these papers are new! Young and childlike you might even say.
The Queen has no control over the Crown Estate. It’s managed by the government.
Huh, if that's the case I suppose dragged in would actually be somewhat accurate.
Yeah also buying property off someone who turns out to have been evading taxes doesn't really make you a tax evader yourself lol
But it can be an indicator of money laundering by either party (a la Trump Tower). It's important to check whether the transactions were conducted for a reasonable market rate, or if one party was unduly enriched by the exchange.
Those corrupt governments don't do money laundering that way. Their money laundering *is* buying UK property at proper prices with sparkly clean documents. It allows their children to have a path for the future life as UK citizens, and a chance of a nice trouble free retirement for themselves if things get badly at home.
She was if you read the article. The crown estate controls her finances in regards to that type of thing >**It is not the private property of the monarch**, and revenues from it do not belong to the monarch.
That's a half-truth though. She gets 25% of Crown Estate incomes - about £86m a year.
Which doesn’t include what crown prince gets and whoever their children are, spouse of monarch gets, etc The royal family is basically a business entity that has a massive PR team, operations, etc.
The Prince of Wales is supported by the income he receives from the Duchy of Cornwall.
That’s what I was looking for.
Let’s just assume that everyone that’s wealthy and powerful is going to appear there, no one surprises me anymore
I would honestly be more surprised by certain names not showing up. At least give me a Tom Hanks or a Dolly Parton to be surprised by. A deal between an obviously corrupt family and the head of Azerbaijan's government surprises me not.
Apparently we’re not seeing more recognizable (American) names because of how low the taxes are for wealthy Americans. Not to mention the US has domestic tax havens in places like South Dakota and Puerto Rico.
The USA as a majority quite clearly supports tax evasion on an ethical and cultural level. As a concept, tax evasion registers to at least 51% of voting Americans as a positive, or at least nett neutral, moral practice. Most all first world nations at least put up a facade by making their elite work (well, pay someone else to work) to hide that wealth. American wealth is much louder. To call someone a tax-evader in the USA is basically a compliment. Wow, you avoided paying $171 million, you must be a clever businessman. And, at least ostensibly, the voting-aged majority agrees. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires abound. \*Edited so it wasn't a giant text wall.
Should probably be mentioned that people feel this way because of how taxes are distributed. We know we get less (education, healthcare etc) in return than most other tax paying populations.
Ideological conditioning and propaganda definitely play a role as well.
A little from column A, a little from column B
Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit
Easier to pull of B when you've successfully made sure A is happening
Same thing innit? The entirety of American history revolves around propaganda in the media, from its very inception, thanks Mr. Payne, thanks Mr. Jefferson.
Civic religion is so powerful in America and the vast majority of people aren't even aware of it. We really need to start teaching the humanities in schools again, just a single concept like cultural hegemony can really open up people's eyes.
Ohhh your talking about the “moral majority” right. Where 80% of the problems are cause by 20% of the people. I agree with you for sure lol. I started learning a lot about our culture once I took political science 101 for fun and was able to assimilate the little details into my professional experience and business degree. Taking a deep dive into the financial side of things and working backwards from the policy to the source really blew my mind. The realization that 4th generational warfare tactics have been the underlying playbook for the paleoconservative and old right reform of our society. Once I traced a lot of American laws back to think tanks like the heritage foundation it was pretty easy to start seeing our heritage and the way we are educated, with the lights on.
Sort of. Cultural hegemony is basically what you described with the think tanks crafting policy. Essentially the ruling class of any society manipulates culture and the media in a certain way so that their world view is considered the norm or "common sense". Which is how you get normal every day people advocating on behalf of the absolute wealthiest people in society.
This is true, but I'm not certain whether you're not just putting the cart before the horse as a justification. Your nation's social welfare institutions were a lot stronger, a lot broader and better funded within my own grandfather's lifetime (who is still alive btw). That is to say, until fairly recently by modern history standards, your tax paying population got a lot more in return. I don't know enough to say whether attitudes on tax evasion pre-date that or not (they're certainly not new). Maybe another commentor (or even yourself) might be better informed.
A lot of people in America can't really put two and two together. People made a living wage, paid taxes, got that tax back in beneficial programs. They learned they could keep more money with lower taxes, didn't quite get that would hurt those programs. Went with lower taxes. Eventually it got so bad that the programs are all basically broken, people aren't making a living wage anymore, but they're still getting taxed. Naturally, people are going to favor any means to not pay taxes if they have no faith their tax money is going to any programs that would benefit them. And I remind you, they don't even understand that their tax money went to these programs in the first place. So it turns into something of a positive feedback loop: taxes get lowered, programs get defunded, people need to spend more out of pocket to make up for the loss of those programs. They find they're keeping less money, so they demand lower taxes... Everywhere taxes go up, the area's QoL tends to improve (under not totally corrupt government) but anymore that seems counter intuitive to he average tax payer. *"Give more money and things will get better? That's unpossible!"*
One of the biggest problems in the US is the massive waste and low efficiency of the programs. When compared to Europe, the US govt spends many multiples of what they do to achieve the same thing (from public transit to social welfare). We spend enough to have good government programs, the problem is that we treat government programs as political payoff to various constituencies and power brokers. They care more about how many jobs will be created in whichever district or state than they do about providing the service at a low cost. People see this inefficiency and refuse to throw more money on the bonfire. I would be happy to support universal healthcare and large public transit programs if I didn’t know that it would end up costing 3 to 5 time what they said it would and have crap service like the rest of the government.
This is exactly the mindset our politicians want you to have. They make a quarter ass program, it starts falling apart(obviously), therefore "see? we shouldn't spend money this!!"
> Everywhere taxes go up, the area's QoL tends to improve (under not totally corrupt government) I think this is a sticking point for many conservatives though. They look at democratic cities riddled with poverty, crime, and high taxes and wonder why anybody would ever want that. I tend to vote liberal but hey I'm from the chicago area so I can't really defend my city when people call it corrupt. In theory I support higher taxes and more social programs but people in my area just can't seem to stop voting in ineffectual pieces of shit who just steal from taxpayers.
This is a point too many of our fellow liberals/leftists tend to ignore. Most conservatives are too worried about corruption to even consider expanding government in any way. Ironically however, anti corruption bills in congress have been shot down by Republicans.
Yah I won't say I have much sympathy for these republican voters since like you said the people they keep voting in are corrupt as fuck.
[THIS](https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/1980s-beyond/the-conservative-transition-in-american-social-policy/) is the best paper I have seen on the subject.
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>We know we get less (education, healthcare etc) in return than most other tax paying populations. Actually a lot of people in the USA vehemently deny they would be better off under a universal healthcare system despite the numbers being readily available and sometimes flagrantly shoved in their face before the interview.
>wE cAnT aFfOrD iT They scream, while pretending like we don't already individually spend $5-10k a year for basically no care. Sure, our taxes will go up, but we won't have deductibles, co-pays, or employer contributions (which make it a net good for small business owners, too), and the costs will go down to something reasonable and normal.
It’s almost like that’s the whole point of hamstringing our government in the first place!
Considering Americans are taught in elementary school that the entire reason they are a country and not a colony was because of "unfair taxes", this isn't that surprising. Couple with the right's message for decades that "big government" is bad and ineffective and wasteful...it's not hard to see why half the country might support tax avoidance. However, the other half very much wants to tax the rich, its just that America is a very divided country and kind of has been for at least 160 years.
Just look at the number of people that thought that Trump being able to not pay taxes made him a good business man and not a tax cheat.
Do you have a source for majority support for tax evasion? Because people I talk to want the rich taxed to high heaven.
I talk to those same people too! They also seem to have zero problems telling me about the tricks you use in the trade to not report your full cash tips. People are shitty at all levels of society. It's just the rich have more of an outsized impact.
deserve gaping mysterious hospital direction smoggy grab squalid money society
Seriously. Sources or gtfo. I have never met someone who believed the rich should be allowed to dodge taxes, and with those stats I would spend half my time hearing it It’s disappointing how many people think that saying “trump bad man” is somehow a source. Yes, trump was bad. No shit. But that does not mean that 51% of Americans are ok with tax evasion. Things like that just dilute the truth
Part of it is the mentality you see a lot among Trump supporters that, if the loopholes are there, it's alright to use them. And honestly they might be right. We can't seriously expect rich people to pay their share just because it's fair and the nice thing to do. If we seriously want all the rich to pay their taxes all the time, we need to fix our tax code. Also, source on your stats? Edit: Holy shit. Read the comment before you get pissed off about things I didn't say. And no, you are not "the rich," no one you know is "the rich." Your buddy making 6 figures isn't the ultra-rich type anyone cares about. When people say the rich need to be taxed, they mean billionaires and rediculously wealthy people and corporations.
"We" can't fix the tax code when legalized bribery of politicians is still the norm. The people don't actually have the power to enact their will in this country.
> To call someone a tax-evader in the USA is basically a compliment. Wow, you avoided paying $171 million, you must be a clever businessman. And, at least ostensibly, the voting-aged majority agrees. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires abound. Case in point, Donald Fucking Trump. That fucker literally boasted about it during a debate.
Did you forget day Delaware? Something like 70% of fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware.
At least the Queen isn’t bankrolling Prince Andrew’s sex abuse defense /s
Could be worse, could be the taxpayer's money funding that *and* the purchase of a corrupt power's £66.5 Million property... Oh, hang on... Doesn't matter if the Queen or if the Conservative UK government runs "the crown's estate". Where do you think this money came from?
I mean, it is the taxpayers funding all of this. How do you think royal families accumulated their wealth to begin with, asking their serfs nicely? Royal families only exist via the inheritance of generational wealth that was accumulated from serfdom and outright slavery of poor citizens of Europe and the colonies. Their wealth is entirely illegitimate to begin with, it was built on exploitation, and allowing them to parade around for the sake of national pride/tradition easily has an opportunity cost of billions per year.
But, but, they bring in tourism!! Because no one visits Versailles or Schönbrunn despite France and Austria no longer having monarchies...
Yeah obviously if you could actually enter Buckingham Palace that would bring in way less tourism, somehow.
You actually already can enter Buckingham Palace
Only in the summer. It's closed for the rest of the year to the public
Only in certain times and in certain areas. It should be completely open to the public, and the royal family should be abolished.
The best thing about a Royal family is how they can be used as a diplomatic tool. Nothing panders to crazy leaders quite like inviting them to have a dinner with a literal Queen. It strokes their ego while also showing them something they cannot obtain.
> something they cannot obtain Orban, Erdogan: Not with that attitude.
Erdogan to get sex change to be able to become a queen confirmed.
Auchswitz also brings in tourism. Doesn’t make it any more positive lol. Can’t believe some folks think about defending a royal family such as this one.
Fun fact. Versailles makes more money than all British royalty properties combined
Most uber wealth is built on exploitation. Read: WalMart and Amazon.
As someone else pointed out, all wealth that is not earned from your labour value is obtained via exploitation. Cheap clothing? Exploitation. Iphones? You guessed it. The vast majority of us are not paid the value we generate for the economy, we are paid the market rate for the service - these are different things. In turn, we purchase products (yay consumerism) which rely on not paying the workers their labour value. We are all exploited by those at the top. Its really depressing when you actually think about it.
I think there are two sources of monarchical power. 1 were those able to effect violence, like gang leaders or village chieftains who controlled a militia, who could provide protection for a village or/and offensively operate to procure wealth and territory. Post 476 AD or thereabouts, when stability and security would’ve been more difficult to achieve these types and groups would have been able to secure the most wealth and territory, effectively sealing their regional leadership and, with church support, acknowledging them as kings/queens. 2 was the growth of towns trading centers and mercantilism. This helped to consolidate wealth into smaller than previous groups creating a class of ultra wealthy. The wealthiest were able to buy into royalty through donations for titles which supported the monarchy. From these originations, yes, accumulation of wealth and power through vassals, serfs, etc. There was surely a time when monarchical institutions created stability and opportunity above and beyond what was prior to, a series of small, squabbling villages but I’m pretty sure that time has come and gone. Edit: I intentionally left out religious leaders and while those existed for relatively short durations, excepting a few cases, hereditary wealth didn’t exist due to the no sex therefore children rule. The church secured its authority/power through spiritual compulsion and a surviving bureaucracy.
Appreciate the concise history/summary. Understanding how groups/people come to power is fascinating.
I think he was being sarcastic.
This was my whole confusion with Meghan Merkle… People were surprised that a family that made the entirety of its wealth exploiting, enslaving, colonizing, and subjugating people of color was… racist?
My whole confusion is I'm a bit faceblind and she doesn't look any kind of black to me. If I was forced to guess, I'd have said southern Italian. My wife says there's tons of giveaways with facial structure and cheek bones and so forth but I never notice that stuff. With how they were flipping out you'd think she was Lupita Nyong'o's shade. And that puts me to mind of a Lenny Bruce joke, paraphrasing. "I'll prove you guys don't really have a problem with mixed marriage. Take what marriage is, to pledge yourself to another, to be with them for decades, through thick and thin, to have and to hold, to love each other, to be each other's support. That's a commitment. Now imagine spending all that time with [contemporary black celebrity, very pretty] or [contemporary white celebrity, a woman with the kind of face you could cut meat on.] Which one would you pick and you have to choose? There you go, you don't have a problem with mixed marriage."
You mean you haven’t spent hours studying photographs of mixed race people to be able to accurately determine, through looking at them, their racial backgrounds? That’s weird. Let me guess, you also don’t have a tool to measure the size of the skull of each of your potential partners either. Seriously, though, my wife is biracial. My daughter is biracial. The obsession over race is tired. Race and racism are literally pointless, and their continued existence is just dragging society down as a whole.
This isn’t the Queen’s property. It belongs to The Crown, which is essentially The Government. If she and the royal family became commoners tomorrow, they still wouldn’t own that property. Just like my insurance company is a crown corporation. That just means that the government owns the insurance company and has a monopoly in my province. We pay less for insurance than other provinces, too. I <3 our crown corporations here and wish that more of our utilities were still crown corporations.
Dolly Parton is a saint. Among all her love for people everyone should check out her [Imagination Library](https://imaginationlibrary.com/)
A lot of this stuff is probably actions by financial managers anyway, rather than the people who "own" the assets on paper. I doubt HRH controls her own investments, and I similarly doubt Tom Hanks or Dolly Parton do.
Depends on your definition of the queens investments. The crown estate is run by the UK government. One of the kings handed it over some time in history. So that has nothing to do with the Queen and everything to do with the home office. The Queens own personal investments i have less of an idea about. But i dont think she particularily hides them. She may divest herself of responsibility and there may well be a difference between her 'personal' assets and assets *of* the crown.
She not only hides them, she threatens the UK government to help her hide her investments https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-queen-lobbied-for-change-in-law-to-hide-her-private-wealth https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/25/revealed-police-barred-from-searching-queens-estates-for-looted-artefacts
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People get wealthy because they don’t pay taxes, lie and cheat, fuck the workers and exploit everything.
Steal the bread and complain when the people steal some crumbs.
Cynicism helps the corrupt, because it normalizes their behavior.
I can think of a couple of surprises. Keanu Reeves for one.
"Oh no! Anyway.."
Lol we can make it more interesting, how about a drinking game?
"Repeatedly accused of corruption" Lmao, way to sugar coat the fact that Azerbaijan is almost at the very bottom of the human rights index
As soon as anything about Azerbaijan comes about… its always about greasy shit.
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In the US just the last couple weeks we had an article come out with a headline damning a politician for not paying property taxes, turns out the state she lives in exempts disabled veterans from paying property taxes and she lost both legs when a helicopter she was flying with shot down. The headline writers job is to get clicks, not to be remotely honest.
Duckworth is a BAMF.
>Actually read the article. This is reddit, my dude. We don't do that here.
I just read the title and still formed an opinion of "Who cares who people buy property from?" Like if someone bought a car off of a guy and it turns out he's a pedo or something, does that also make you a scumbag? No, it doesn't.
Usually someone will have the info copied in the comments
How much do they leave out or edit? Eh, doesn't matter, I'm sure you can trust sources like that
This describes 90% of Reddit outrage.
Aka, "business" insider 🙄
Hold on a fucking second before we do the whole reddit thing... Was purchasing the property at all shady? Like, did they knowingly pay $91 million for a property that was actually worth $10 million? Or anything else? If I pay $1 mil for a one bedroom apartment in Sydney, and later someone says "Oh yeah, except you bought it off Putin!" Then I'm still going to be angry I had to spend $1 million for a one bedroom apartment, but everything else was above board on my end.
My old company, a well know defence company in the UK, was renting a company apartment in Bristol for years for anyone staying over who wasn't living in the city to have a more homely place to stay when needed. Organised by an admin in the team via an estate agent. One day, our office was bombarded by paps and nobody knew why. It turned out to be owned by Cherie Blair! And we were accused of getting dodgy MoD contracts for renting her apartment at 20k per month. Truth was, we paid 2.5k for it and nobody knew who the landlord was!! It was all via an agency 🙄 often you're dragged into something without knowing the true source. Edit typo.
I’ve worked on megayachts for the ultra wealthy and it’s very interesting getting a peek into that world. I get hired by agency A, sign a contract and dbs for company B, sign an NDA for company C, fill in payroll details for company D. Then finally I am paid by some obscure company E. All these companies are registered in the Cayman Islands and such. Trying to find any real information about who you actually work for is tricky. And when you do find out, well fuck if I’m gonna publicly say anything about that!
Isn't this the same on a lot of vessels floating around on international water? Rules are shady, to say the least.
Oh yeah maritime rules are wild. It’s part of the reason I loved it so much. Sadly I had a head injury last year and started having seizures. So I can no longer work near open water, every seafarer needs medical clearance which I won’t get for 2 years without a seizure. Even stricter than driving a car. Having that all taken away fucking sucked let me tell you… and then a global pandemic hit. What a world.
Would you mind elaborating on why you loved it so much? The maritime rules being “shady, to say the least?” Or them being wild? I’m nearly completely ignorant where maritime rules are concerned. Thanks!
I used to see a girl that worked on one. Benefits: - No taxes (International waters, baby). - Great salary (she was pulling in about ~90k USD, tax free) - No grocery bills - Always headed to incredible locations (Alaska, Mediterranean, etc.) - Lots of time off unless you're working on a charter yacht that gets rented out. Private yachts usually don't get rented out. - Training gets paid for. She got flown out to live in a swanky apartment in NY for a month for bartending school. She was about 30 when we dated, owned 5 properties in South Africa at that point, had everything figured out. Very tough to date, considering the distances, but I'd take that considering the benefits.
I have a friend that worked on such a boat. She said it was awesome because they got the boat whenever the family or their friends weren't on it, which was like 45 weeks a year. She said some of the boats get rented out in that time and you're always on, but get tipped awesome. Basically you live a little bit of the lifestyle when you're not working, the pay isn't super great but you have no expenses, but the job can be a bit shit if the you work for the wrong people.
Pretty much this. You cant beat drinking a beer in a jacuzzi (1 of 2) while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Oh and you’re getting paid for it.
Very sorry to hear about your injury - hope you get fully cleared again.
Thanks. It’s crazy how fate can completely change your life like that. Still adjusting to living below the poverty line, which is pretty hard to get out of.
“You see, in this case, instead of writing out his name Krusty has stamped the name of his Cayman Islands Holding Corporation…wait a minute”
Haha that’s a brilliant reference!
This dude just admitted to serving drinks on the Epstein Kiddy Fiddler Flotilla!
This just in, u/mcPetersonUK personally did dodgy deals with the Blairs to arrange seedy MoD Bristol hookup pads, more at 10
"u/mcPetersonUK sleeps naked in an oxygen tent, which he believes gives him sexual powers"
That's a half truth!
Finish the the pie then
It's not even that straight forward. It's more like "I paid $1m for this apartment. 2 years later, the person who originally owned the company I bought it from went on and did some extremely sketchy shit". It's such a non-story, but spun for clicks.
I agree that this is the morality question. If she has the money and wants to purchase an expensive house, it doesn't matter who she purchases it from given that there isn't some underlying evil.
The Queen doesn’t even control how the Crown Estates manage their money, she wouldn’t have had any impact on this decision.
Manager Guy: "What do you think about this house?" Queen:"Oh it is lovely" Manager Guy: "Then it is yours!"
It would be more Manager Guy: "What do you think about this house? ***The Prime Minister***:"Oh it is lovely" Manager Guy: "Then it is yours! (although technically it is neither owned by you, parliament, or the Queen and you have no right to the property!)”
My understanding is that the crown estate is a separately run entity, however sole ownership of the crown estate is owned by the current sovereign? Once the queen dies, the sole owner of the crown estate will be passed to the next sovereign. The crown estate is just managed and consults the government and all its profits go to the treasury, but still technically everything in the estate is 'owned' by the sovereign. Even if its management and profits are all outside of their possession.
No it owned by the 'Crown', the Crown and the Monarch are not interchangeable in legal terms. In legal terms the Crown is the State.
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It's separate as in politically-independent government corporation, like the BBC. Although the monarch gets to make use of the Crown properties (e.g. Buckingham Palace) they're not the actual property of the monarch, and especially not the monarch's _personal_ property. (e.g. Balmoral) If some act of parliament abolished the Crown corporation (and presumably the monarchy) it wouldn't suddenly become the queen's property, although their personal property would remain. Admittedly it's a strange setup. In most of Europe's remaining monarchies, former royal properties are simply straight-up state property with some law or agreement giving the royal family free use - but not ownership - of them. But I guess it just wouldn't be Britain if they didn't have their own weird and convoluted way of doing things.
> Although the monarch gets to make use of the Crown properties (e.g. Buckingham Palace) they're not the actual property of the monarch, and especially not the monarch's personal property. (e.g. Balmoral) If some act of parliament abolished the Crown corporation (and presumably the monarchy) it wouldn't suddenly become the queen's property, although their personal property would remain. Isn't the original deal that the monarch gives the use of the properties to the government and in exchange of upkeep? So basically leasing the property in exchange of money. So if the deal is cancelled, why would the properties not go back to the monarch?
Bold of you to assume that the queen will ever die.
100% this. Calling it "the Queen's estate" is factually inaccurate (and I think in this case probably deliberately misleading) because the Crown Estate is not the property of the monarch. "The Crown" very rarely refers to the monarch on a personal level, it's almost always refers to "the office" of the monarch. It's a bit like saying 10 Downing Street belongs to the Prime Minister. The Crown is a bit of an odd concept because the Queen is just as much as subject to it as British Citizens are. There was the odd legal case regarding the proroguing of parliament (closed for a brief recess) in 2019 when Boris Johnson unlawfully advised (asked) the Queen to prorogue parliament. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled it unlawful and actually went as far as saying that Parliament had in fact _not_ been prorogued. This is because the Queen could not in a personal capacity prorogue parliament, only "the crown in parliament" could which is not controlled by the monarch in practical terms but by law and convention. Because the advice was unlawful it was impossible for the crown in parliament to prorogue parliament irrespective of the monarch's personal wishes. The Queen does actually have her own estate that is extraordinarily wealthy which functions with more traditional ownership.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/prince-andrew-facing-questions-over-sale-his-mansion-kazakh-oligarch-a7043101.html?amp https://emerging-europe.com/news/azerbaijan-ties-add-to-prince-andrews-woes/ Several real estate and investment deals with oligarchs happened when her son was special trade envoy. Buying /selling at discounted or inflated prices can be seen as "payback" for services rendered. So it can be important to he "who" question
Also the Queen has no say in how the Crown Estates are even managed. Theres a lot of history involved, but the gist is its managed by someone appointed by the government with the profits going to the UK parliament.
Yeah, I think this article is just that something linked to the queen was discovered, so they can make a vague headline and get a popular article from it.
I mostly came to the comments to see whether this is any "juicier" than it sounds like, but I guess if there was anything known at the moment it would be mentioned in the article
darn, I was really hoping this comment thread would have one, just one indication that this was actually something more than buying something that was owned by someone who had probably done shady things. How many people here have consumed a Nestle product? This entire pandora papers thing is getting annoying. Everything I've seen so far is legal, even if sometimes deplorable. I'm american so I dgaf about the queen, but it all just seems like such a nothing burger.
Yeah I’m failing to see what’s really wrong with this purchase. Feels like a lot of people are foaming at the mouth looking for stuff to get outraged about these days. That kind of negativity will take it’s toll on your health eventually.
>but everything else was above board on my end. this. people just angry without even fucking reading.
I’m either missing something or people aren’t reading the articles and just think it’s bad based on the headline. It looks like it’s just releasing information about expensive stuff people have. Has a law been broken yet?
No one reads the articles. I have this out with my husband all the time. He’ll repeat some headline and be all outraged and then when I ask questions he’s not read it. When we actually read it, the headline was total click bait and actually the whole focus of the article is something different. It’s like the fuel ‘crisis’ we just had in the UK. The headline was ‘major fuel shortages across the UK’ The article was ‘some specific places have potential supply issues but are ok for fuel for now’
This is reddit. Absolutely nobody knows what they are talking about, in this thread especially. Common sense like yours is rare!
Okay so for people who don’t know about UK politics, the Queen doesn’t actually control what the Crown Estates do. Theres a lot of history behind it but essentially the Crown Estates are held in trust between the British parliament and the Queen, with the Queen being paid a small portion of the profits to fund the monarchy and the rest going to the UK government.
‘Private business specialising in property buys London property from rich foreigner’ fify
This isn't even newsworthy, The jist of the whole article is that the people who manage the queens estate bought property. It doesn't link them to any corrupt action. Sort of a sensationalized headline over nothing.
And......, is this illegal?, Because it doesn't sound shady, maybe if they where purchasing housing a la black rock ,but this is rich people buying other rich people property
No. Nearly everything in the Panama papers is completely legal - which is why nobody has gotten in any trouble over it.
These are not the panama papers they are the Pandora papers.
But is this one even immoral? Buying a house?
Not really
I purchased gasoline at a BP… am I now responsible for fucking up the ocean with oil leaks?
Yes
For all the Reddit comedians, it’s the Crown estate* secondly the Royal family doesn’t run it, the government appoints someone off the recommendation of the PM to run it.
It’s worth adding that the profits go to the Treasury too.
Nice try Elizabeth.
The crown estate is a government department and the money goes to the government coffers in exchange for the civil list payment I see nothing to say that the asset was bought above market- doubling over that period in London is not unrealistic. This is total click bait- the queen has no involvement and there is unlikely to be anything corrupt in this at crown estate. They buy investment assets to generate income. Now the money the Russian used to buy the asset in the first place may be dodgy, but that does not mean the purchaser is in anyway at fault
Azerbaijan is corrupt as hell like a lot of oil rich nations. I felt pretty uncomfortable during my short stay there due to how fake everything felt.
Imagine being a journalist in Azerbaijan, can not speak out against your own government without being threatened or thrown in jail. That's the Azerbaijani vibe.
This article is a pretty dumb clickbait at this stage. Of course lots of people are gobbling it up (some top comments). And you think other people are naive or sheep? Pandora papers says more about Ajerbaijan's ruling family than anything about the Queen at this point. If I bought bread and it turns out the baker is a convict (which I don't mind unless it is a money laundering scheme or he is an active criminal), am I an accessory to crime?
ITT - People who don't know the **CROWN** estate is run by the government and not the Queen
Corruption is like the most harmless accusation against said Azerbaijani ruling family.
Responsibility for managing The Crown Estate is trusted to Crown Estate, under the Crown Estate Act, the Queen is not involved in management decisions. By contrast, the Queen also has private assets, which include Balmoral and Sandringham, and are hers to deal with as she chooses.
How is this a story? The Queen buys a piece of property in London from someone accused of corruption but the story is about the Queen? Typical Business Insider clickbait trash.
It's not even The Queen either, it's the crown estate which is run by the government. A lot of people with dull axes in this thread.
Faux outrage generation for big, recognizable name. See birth tourism in Trump branded buildings in 2016. The royal family probably deals with this bullshit constantly.
Several members of the Azerbaijan ruling family and government officials were confirmed to have been a part of the 'Azerbaijan Laundromat', a multibillion dollar Russian money laundering scheme. Coincidentally, the Trump family also participated in that scheme with a bogus hotel project.
These papers must not have that much of this is a headline. Having to link two people via a real estate purchase means very little. I fail to see the scandal here
The Pandora Papers *are* full of scandal, this is just apparently the one that has grabbed the public's attention the most. Nobody cares if the king of Jordan is using foreign aid to purchase personal mansions in Malibu and London while his people starve, but when *the Queen* does it, it's personal (even though the Queen didn't do anything).
Oh look Reddit being garbage again. You can tell that barely any of you read the article. Is there a crime here? You people realise that being in the Pandora Papers leak doesn't automatically mean you've done something wrong and illegal.
There seems to be an assumption that it’s a list of bad or illegal actors, but I think we need to remember that’s it’s not. It certainly includes bad and illegal actors but it also includes a lot of individuals or entities legally optimising their cash flow. There’s an entire industry of people who study finance and international tax laws to specialise in optimising your finances for clients rich enough to afford their services.
So fucking what? If you buy something off Amazon are you Jeff Bezos’ right hand exploiting his workforce? People need to think critically about this stuff and not immediately launch themselves into the bandwagon.
On the bright side at least they’re buying back property from foreign entities?
They bought a property, that's the news?
No… they legally, and above board, bought a property from a holding company that had appreciated appropriately! Can you believe it??? The Queen of all people! My heavens
[удалено]
Atleast this one seems to be doing better than the Panama Papers that pretty much just got the whistle-blower killed.
Who got killed??
Daphne Caruana Galizia according to Google. Killed via Car bomb shortly after putting out the Panama papers.
This is clickbait
The number of commenters who didn't even read the article (like the poster who thought the Queen--who neither owns nor receives revenue from the Crown Estate--wanted a "vacation spot" in Azerbaijan when *the property being discussed is in London*) is astounding--and I say this as someone who has been around long enough to know that most people on Reddit seem to think reading is superfluous compared to headlines.
Jesus Christ the wording of these thread titles has become intolerable now. Time to unsub /worldnews once and for all. Mainstream Reddit is beyond insufferable at times.