As we’re discussing her Maj she owns but a drop in the ocean - 20,000 acres personally and another 360,000 in the crown estates.
It’s the rest of the toffs that own most of it (apart from the stuff under forestry commission management but they’ve only got it because no-one else wants it).
“In the 1980s Sir Terry was one of several celebrities to put substantial funds into forestry in the Scottish Highlands. He took advantage of a government scheme that allowed people to write off investments in woodlands against income tax.”
I wonder if some folk read “took advantage” to mean something “bad” when in this instance it simply means “he made use of”…
Similarly, in days gone by… one could get married just before the end of the Tax Year and get the full allowance rebate for that year… Nothing illegal… just making best use of the system as laid down …
Yep… some folk go potty on learning that “someone” has done something perfectly legal…followed all the govt guidelines/instructions… and (correctly) paid less tax as a result…
I was a merchant seaman and, as long as I spent a certain amount of time outside the UK, my income was exempt. Obviously, therefore, I was far from alone.
Absolutely. Exactly what we did.
Married on the 29th March, which was also Easter Saturday so the church was already decorated.
Not much money at all then and everything that helped was welcome.
A lot of people went in for that, ending up with acres and acres of pine forest all over the place where it had no business being, wrecking the habitat of all sorts of creatures and hugely reducing biodiversity. When I was 7 or 8 I remember raptors being almost wiped out by people exploiting the Highlands for shoots as well, and at the same time people were oohing and aahing over one of the last pairs of ospreys in the UK at the time who nested just at the bottom of the hill, you could see them from my dormitory window.