Queen Elizabeth To Get 5 Percent Raise as Crown Estate Makes Profit

Queen Elizabeth will receive a 5 percent raise next year, boosting her salary to 38 million British pounds (nearly $58 million).

Thanks to record real estate revenues, the Crown Estate — a public body that manages property for the monarch — reported a 5.2 percent increase in the last financial year for a total profit of 252.6 million pounds.

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The queen then receives a cut of that sum, generally 15 percent of the profit from the last two years, in the form of a Treasury grant, according to CNN.

The Crown Estate's properties include everything from stores in London to rural farms to housing complexes. These assets technically belong to Queen Elizabeth but are not her private units.

According to the estate's annual report released Thursday, the queen spent 2.3 million pounds more than her allotted grant last year, CNN reported. The royal attributed the overspending to her busy schedule of public appearances and the Diamond Jubilee, which marked the 60th anniversary of her coronation last year.

The report also detailed the taxpayers' burden.

The cost to the taxpayer of supporting the monarchy rose by just under 1 million pounds to 33.3 million during the Diamond Jubilee year, Buckingham Palace accounts show. The taxpayer funds used to pay for official air and rail travel at home and abroad for members of the Royal Family fell by 500,000 pounds from 5 million in 2011-12 to 4.5 million in 2012-13, the Daily Mail reported.

Some Brits are outraged at the queen's multi-million "salary" and what her monarchy is ultimately costing the taxpayers.

"The Crown Estate is not — and never has been — the personal property of the royals," Graham Smith, chief executive of the anti-monarchist group Republic, told the Daily Mail. "The Windsors have no more right to its revenue than I do. To claim that it should fund their lavish lifestyle is deceitful and dishonest."

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