Queen Won’t Pay Inheritance Tax

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth will pay no inheritance tax on her late mother’s estate, a collection that included racehorses, jewels and art worth about $73million, Buckingham Palace said.

Inheritance tax on such an estate normally would be 40%. But under a 1993 agreement, assets passed from sovereign to sovereign--or from the consort of a former sovereign to the reigning monarch--are not subject to inheritance tax.

Buckingham Palace said the Queen was exempt from inheritance tax as he or she needed an “appropriate degree of financial independence” from the government and because a king or queen was unable to “generate significant new wealth through earnings or business activities.”