By FIONA BARTON

Last updated at 12:50 16 April 2008

Dame Anita: 'Money means nothing to me', she said and left her entire fortune to charity. Her will, published yesterday, was eaten up by inheritance tax

She was always adamant she had no intention of "dying rich".

And Dame Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop, has proved as good as her word.

Her will, published yesterday, reveals that she has left precisely nothing, having already given away £51million of her fortune to charity and the rest to the taxman.

The gross value of Dame Anita's estate when she died last September was £665,747.

But the entire sum was swallowed up by inheritance tax, leaving her net worth at "nil".

It is understood that hundreds of thousands of pounds in duty became liable on gifts of money she gave to family and friends shortly before her sudden death.

Under the Inland Revenue's "seven-year rule", an individual can escape paying tax if they survive for seven years after making monetary gifts.

Dame Anita, who died from a brain haemorrhage at the age of 64, wanted her vast wealth to fund campaigns on green issues, human rights and Third World debt.

She described leaving money to your family as "obscene" and cut her two daughters Sam and Justine out of her will in 2005 soon after making a fortune from the sale of The Body Shop.

French cosmetics firm L'Oreal paid £625million for the company, paying Dame Anita and her husband Gordon more than £100million for their 18 per cent share in the business.

Her half of the profit from the eco-friendly, ethical business which she and her husband built up from one shop was donated to the Roddick Foundation, which supports charity causes she espoused.

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Cut out: The businesswoman's daughters said they agree totally with their mother's decision not to leave them any money. Sam, left, runs an upmarket sex shop in London and Justine lives and works in California

Her widower, 65, who also received £51million from the L'Oreal sale, is a trustee of the foundation.

Mr Roddick and his family were yesterday away on holiday but the couple's daughters have publicly supported their mother's decision to disinherit them.

Justine, 38, lives and works in California. Sam, 35, runs the upmarket London sex shop, Coco de Mer.

In an interview before her mother's death, Sam called the decision to disinherit her and her sister "a relief", adding: "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.

"So, 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 really argue about someone giving their money away, can you?

"They've already given us everything in terms of love and support."

She added, mischievously: "My mum's only actually got half the family fortune. My dad hasn't said what he's going to do with his half."

Dame Anita was diagnosed with Hepatitis C last year - the unknown legacy of an infected blood transfusion 35 years earlier - but appeared to be coping well with the illness when she collapsed at her home in West Sussex.

Explaining her philosophy, she had said: "Money does not mean anything to me. The worst thing is greed - the accumulation of money."