I once read an article (on line= so take with a grain of salt) that discussed the amount of money that Britain has to spend to maintain the crown. Can’t remember the figure but remember thinking that it was a big sum. Given that the queen is one of the riches people on earth, maybe austerity should include eliminating the monarchy. Not defending the violence but I can understand the sentiment.
The monarchy also brings money into the country through tourism.
Im no royalist, but we actually make more from the Royals than we pay out.
In actual fact, the monarchy is a really good financial deal for Britain.
The majority of the wealth of the monarchy is tied up in what is called the Crown Estate. This isn't the property of the Queen, but it is the property of the Monarch and the Royal Family, and if the Monarchy was abolished legally the Crown Estate would revert to the family. Leaving aside the entire question of royalty and just thinking of the Windsors as just a rich family (like the Rockefeller or the Vanderbilts) etc, government can't just seize their property and assets - they have the same rights as anyone else.
Since the reign of King George III, there has been a deal in place (reconfirmed with each new King or Queen) by which the revenues and profits of the Crown Estate are given to the government of Great Britain to be used for the public good. In exchange for these revenues, the government pays the official expenses of the Monarch and their Consort. This is the money that Britain pays to maintain the crown. It is called the Civil List.
The Civil List amount is currently fixed at £7,900,000 per year. It has been at that level since 1990. That's quite a lot of money certainly. But...
The Crown Estate is currently valued at about £6,000,000,000. The income from the Crown Estate in a typical year is around £200,000,000 (the most recent figure for July 2009 to July 2010 is £210,700,000). That money is all given to the British treasury.
So the Treasury is giving the Queen £7,900,000 and getting back £210,700,000 - a profit to the Treasury of £202,800,000 this year. Put it another way - the Queen pays a functional income tax rate of 96.25% on the revenues of the Crown Estate.
(The Queen also has the income from the Duchy of Lancaster (around £10,000,000 a year), and the Prince of Wales has the income from the Duchy of Cornwall (around £16,000,000 a year) but even if you count these in (and bear in mind these are the profits of normal corporate activities and businesses/rents/etc), out of about £250,000,000 a year the 'Windsor Family' is entitled to in the same way any other wealthy family is (admittedly there aren't that many families that are that rich - on this type of measure the Queen is one of the fifty richest people on Earth, probably just into the top twenty), they get to keep about £40,000,000 and hand over £210,000,000).
Financially it's a good deal for Britain, unless people advocate seizing property without compensation.