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Monarchy Tax
Remove costly and tiresome monarchies, simply, swiftly, democratically. | |
Here in Swedeland they have the rather nifty idea of allowing one to opt out of paying tax for the church. This I feel could and should be extended to the monarchy.
UK Royal Assent
http://www.parliame...ompso29.htm#note300
Tells you all you need to know [PeterSilly, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
[link]
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I have a feeling you'll find the US baked this some 200 or more years ago. |
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Would this mean that people who didn't pay the royalty tax would lose the benefit of royalty? (No more laughing about Prince Charles, gossiping about Princess Anne's psychotic dogs or having perverted sexual fantasies about Prince William, for instance.) |
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Hmmm. An itemized bill for government. Opt out of whatever you don't like.... Nah, they'd never let us do that. |
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how about competitive government, as opposed to this tedious monopolistic system. You could opt to pay whichever monarchy/government system seems to be doing the best in your own country. |
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aha [peter] but they didn't tax it away they used the more conventional method of a bloody revolution. |
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[nichpo] - they did "opt out of paying tax for the" "monarchy" (your words). The fact that they did it by less than peaceful means appears to be irrelevant according to the text of your idea. |
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[peter] damn you, you are right, impaled on my own sword again. What I meant to say was 'legally opt out'. |
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I thought that the monarchy had the power to veto any piece of legislation about to be passed... no? |
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Oh no, no, no. There's no veto involved. It's just that nothing can become law unless the monarch gives it their assent. Totally different.
<Sir Humphrey Appleby> The treasury doesn't decide what it wants to do and then raise the taxes to pay for it. It pitches for as much money as it thinks it can get away with and then decides what to spend it on afterwards. </SHA> |
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Possibly it depends which monarchy [Detly] but in the UK as the good Dr points out, the monarch simply gives their assent to something becoming law. Presumably they have the right to withold their assent but if they ever did, I'm sure a law would be passed very quickly removing this right. |
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Queen Anne was the last (UK) monarch to withhold her assent, on some Military Bill in 1707. |
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That was the Scottish Militia Bill, I think. Canada had an incident in the late thirties, where Royal Assent was withheld on the advice of the Governor-General, over some financial bills that were potentially harmful and a bill to curtail the activities of the press. It led to a dissolution of the government, as I recall. |
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There was some discussion about it after our Governor-General dissolved the government on 11 November 1975 after the opposition blocked fiscal supply in our federal senate. |
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Royal Assent is really no different to the US president signing bills into law, if I understand the process correctly. A bill that has passed both houses of government, under a bicameral parliamentary system, is hardly likely to attract a recommendation, by government, to the executive to withhold decree. |
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Withholding in that case would be practically deciding against the will of the people. That would likely cause a constitutional crisis, these days, as it would depreciate the value of an elected government as representatives of the constituency. |
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Starting to move into murky waters here but, as I understand it, the MP's are elected by the people but the government is formed at the request of the monarch and the ministers in that government are servants of the crown, not of the people. It is normal for the monarch to ask the leader of the majority party in parliament to form the government but it is not a hard and fast rule. And the Prime Minister can appoint anyone he/she likes to a ministerial position whether that person has been elected or not.
And in the event of a constitutional crisis it might be as well to remember that the army swears allegiance to the crown, not to parliament. |
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True, though government pays the piper. |
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Also worth noting that UK folk are subjects rather than citizens, meaning that we are all supposed to do HM's bidding at her beck and call. She merely uses parliament to ascertain the will of the people at her good pleasure. Practically, if she tried to govern without parliament, she'd meet a similar fate to one of her Scottish forebears. |
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Basically, in republics, "The Crown" is replaced by "The People." |
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And occasionally, by a banana. |
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