The king, his millions, and the first public royal tax bill – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11The King's tax bill is much smaller than it would be if he was an ordinary citizen. If you measure up the tax that he paid and you look at other really rich people and how much tax they pay, it's less. It's a lot less. The monarchy has said that this is transparency to publish this information for the first time. The sceptics think that it might just have a little bit to do with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his scrapes over the Epstein affair. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hobb. King Charles has become the first monarch in modern history to reveal how much tax he pays on his private income.

0:52Some are saying that this is a new era in transparency on the very murky issue of royal finances. Others are somewhat more sceptical. Juliet Garside, you are our European financial affairs editor. You've been covering this story for us. What do the figures that the king has revealed tell us? Hi, Lucy. So, yes, for the first time, we have a number. It's not much more than a number. It's like three numbers. So we know that over the last two years for which he's declaring, so that's 24-25, and then the year before that, he's paid about 13 million in tax for one year and 11.7 million in tax before that.

1:35So it's about 24 million in total. But there are many, many unanswered questions around those numbers. Yeah. Well, talk to me about some of those unanswered questions. The monarchy has said this is transparency. The sceptics, and there are many, and I think we'd probably include ourselves among them, think that it might just have a little bit to do with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his scrapes over the Epstein affair and his deep involvement in that. This is probably given MPs, and remember we have a Labour government, leverage to prise a little bit more out of the monarchy about their finances.

2:11But you ask, what is it we still need to find out? Well, the main question is we just don't know on what income that tax was paid because we don't know how much his income is. He's got three sources of income. He's got the sovereign grant, which is taxpayer money for doing his royal duties. And that's not tax. That's not counted as income. He's got the Duchy of Lancaster, which doesn't belong to him. It belongs to whoever's the monarch at the time. And that's a tidy sum of 25 million in income a year on which he's taxed. And then he's also got his private wealth. Yeah, so it feels like the timing is really interesting, as you've been suggesting.

2:52We have a Labour government, but we've also had this huge scandal around Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The palace has said that this was the express whist of Charles to reveal his private finances. We should also say that Prince William has revealed his tax bill as well. He has. And in fact, when Charles was Prince of Wales, he used to publish his own tax bill. So in a sense, that's more of the same. Yes. So he said it's his express wish. But of course, now we're all talking about that, aren't we? And we're not talking about the scandals around Andrew and other issues. There are other pieces of information that have been released which might also be quite controversial as part of this big financial declaration that the palaces did yesterday.

3:38And they might also prefer us to be talking about his tax bill in the light of a really big increase in the money he gets from the sovereign grant. Yes, it is a shocking increase. My jaw almost dropped when I read how much the sovereign grant has increased by. So this is money paid by Parliament to the monarch and his working royal family to carry out their duty. And the rise in that in the last tax year is astronomical, to say the least. It's astronomical. So it's gone up by more than twice. It was already big. I mean, he was getting more than 45 million a year and it's gone up to 132. 2.1 million a year.

4:19Yeah, so they're saying this is going to be used to do much needed rewiring or whatever at the palace. I mean, that's been going on a long time, but the Royal Palaces do need repairs and maintenance and solar panels and things like that. I think some of it's going to be spent to replace the boilers at Windsor Castle. Right. But also controversially, King Charles has said he won't be living at Buckingham Palace as his primary residence. So there is this nearly 400 million pound of taxpayer money being spent on a refurbishment of Buckingham Palace and some other royal residences. But King Charles intends to stay at Clarence House, where he currently lives with Queen Camilla.

5:01So again, that is not going to go down well with much of the public. Yeah, I mean, the question people will be quite rightly asking is, why are we spending tens of millions renovating a house that nobody's going to live in from, you know, the monarch is not going to live in? So the message from the palace seems to be that they want Buckingham Palace to be more readily accessible to the public. But I think there will be serious questions, as you say, in the minds of the public, given that the monarch won't be living there. We at The Guardian did a huge investigation into the royal finances back in 2023, an investigation called Cost of the Crown, which was to try and work out the net worth of the king.

5:43We looked at all sorts of things. We looked at the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, these huge private property portfolios. We also looked at artworks, jewels, horses, and we did come to a quite substantial number that was in excess of one billion. How can we tally what we learnt in that investigation with this tax bill? Well, it is really hard to match that up, isn't it? Because we don't know what the revenues are from that private fortune, which I think for the family as a whole came to something like£1.8 billion. We know he gets£25 million a year from the Duchy of Lancaster, but not what he gets from his private assets.

6:23He doesn't declare that. But rule of thumb, if you measure that up, if you measure up the tax that he paid in the previous financial year, remember, that was about 13 million. And you look at other really rich people and how much tax they pay each year is less. It's a lot less. So, for example, Tim Martin, the owner, the boss of Wetherspoons, paid, I think, 200 million in tax in the most recent year. the footballer Erling Haaland who's not even British paid 17 million so he paid more than the king he pays more tax than the king and he is not you know he's not British um yeah he's just living here for a while so what we do know is that the king's tax bill is much smaller than it would be if he was an ordinary citizen yeah yeah and it's worth saying that Prince William makes a very tidy some from the Duchy of Cornwall, which he inherited from his father when his father ascended to the throne.

7:25Let's talk about those duchies, because that's one of the key ways that they make real profit, don't they? Because these are huge areas of land where, in particular, they make profit from renewable energy, from letting out houses. I think the Duchy of Lancaster has assets of about 600 million, that's land, cottages for rent, farms, that sort of thing. and licensing deals. My colleague Rob Evans, I think, worked very closely with you on the cost of the crown, describes them as rivers of cash. And we're talking about revenues each year for the Duchy of Cornwall as well, topping 20 million a year.

8:07Those duchies don't pay capital gains tax like a normal company would when they sell an asset and they make a profit. They don't pay corporation tax. So they're accumulating value and wealth untaxed. And then the bit that spits out money at the end of the year to the monarch and the Prince of Wales, that bit is taxed. But, you know, voluntarily. So in a sense, these are mini tax havens within the UK, within England and Wales. Gosh, the royal family being some sort of tax haven is quite an extraordinary thought. Just lastly, Juliet, I mean, obviously, Charles is trying to increase transparency in the wake of a very, very big scandal recently with his brother, Andrew.

8:54But what more could the family do to increase that transparency and allow for greater scrutiny about their finances? The short answer is a lot more. I mean, some campaigners have suggested, and I think quite sensibly, that they should be publishing, particularly for the duchies, but also for their private estates, the same kind of information that a private company would publish. So you, a large private company, these are large estates. So you would have the revenues, you'd have the value of the assets. you'd have importantly what they've deducted in their expenses against tax because we know that they are taking off money that they use from the duchy income for expenses like their official duties and helping other members of the royal family pay for their staff and that could be I don't know millions a year we just don't know what the tax breaks are within what's published what feels appropriate what feels transparent is is some accounts that show you all of those details and how much was capital gains and how much was dividend tax and what are the assets worth as a whole.

9:59Now, why don't they do that? They probably end up having to pay a lot more tax. Well, no comment, Juliet. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks for having me. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to The Guardian's European Financial Affairs Editor, Juliet Garside. You can keep up with her reporting and our reporting on this story over at theguardian.com. And I really recommend listening to our sister podcast, Politics Weekly. It's been 10 years since Brexit and Kieran Stacey is looking back on the vote that changed the country forever with a series of interviews with key players on both sides.

10:33Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your fees as usual on Monday morning. The latest will be back on Monday night. Have a lovely weekend. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Aisha Riaz and Jacob Antiga. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The executive producer was Zoe Hidge.

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