Anita Roddick, the late founder of the Body Shop, fulfilled her promise that she would not leave one penny of her multimillion-pound fortune to her children in her will.

The retailer gave £51 million to her charitable foundation before she died last year aged 64, leaving an estate of £655,747, which will go to the taxman. Her net worth is listed as nil.

It is understood that hundreds of thousands of pounds in death duties became liable on gifts of money she gave to family and friends shortly before her unexpected death, last September, from a brain haemorrhage. Large cash gifts escape inheritance tax only if the donor survives for seven years after the money is transferred.

Dame Anita once described the idea of bequeathing her fortune to her children as obscene. “I told my kids that they would not inherit one penny,” she said. “The money that we make from the company goes into the Body Shop Foundation, which isn’t one of those awful tax shelters, like some in America. It just functions to take the money and give it away.”

Gordon Roddick, Dame Anita’s husband and business partner, will not be wanting for money, however. He will have his share of the £100 million the couple received when they sold the Body Shop in 2005. The couple owned 18 per cent of the company, which was bought for £625 million by L’Oréal, the French cosmetics giant.

Dame Anita gave her share of the profits to the Roddick Foundation, which supports charities such as Chicken Shed Theatre, Greenpeace and Amnesty International. The charity gives away up to £2.5 million a year.

The couple’s two daughters, Sam and Justine, have previously said that they supported their mother’s decision to disinherit them. Sam, 35, who runs Coco de Mer, an upmarket sex shop, said in an interview before her mother’s death that it was a relief. “If the money was divided between family members, I suppose it would be natural to equate the amount that you were left with the amount that you were loved, which makes it very complicated and emotional.

“If my mum had said to me, ‘I’m not leaving the money to you but I’ve decided to give it all to a distant cousin’, then I would have found that offensive. But giving it all to charity is different. You can’t argue about someone giving their money away, can you? They’ve already given us everything in terms of love and support.”

Dame Anita was told in 2004 that she had hepatitis C, contracted through a blood tranfusion when she gave birth to Sam in 1971. She had cirrhosis of the liver and needed a transplant, but appeared to be fighting the disease. Her collapse, at her home in West Sussex, came as a shock.

“Money does not mean anything to me,” she once said. “The worst thing is greed - the accumulation of money.”

Strong willpower

— Joan Crawford cut her two eldest children, Christina and Christopher from her will. Christina later published Mommie Dearest, about her mother’s abusive treatment

— Eugene O’Neill disinherited his daughter Oona, accusing her of seeking publicity fit for a second-rate actress and “floozie”

— Barron Hilton, Paris Hilton’s grandfather, said last year that he would leave almost all his fortune to charity, costing Paris $2.2bn

Source: www.legalzoom.com; agencies

Times recommends

• Live chat: Thrifty ways to update your winter wardrobe
• Is anybody out there really listening?
• Nutrition Q&A: Will eating late make me fat?