Royals took more than £1bn income

[ladykale]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2023/apr/05/revealed-royals-took-more-than-1bn-income-from-controversial-estates-king-charles-queen-duchies-cornwall-lancaster

I just don't understand how high earners are taxed to death in this country and the average population still wants them to pay more and more tax, yet most are in favour of the Royal Familh whose income increased x16 during the Queen's reign and they took £1bn of income,

I don't know how they've successfully brainwashed the people of britain to continue supporting them.

I find it so ridiculous.

They are certainly a greedy and selfish lot the Royals, but we let them get away with it. We should be taxing wealth, not income. Pay people (incl Charlie boy) a proper salary and tax unearned income or wealth.

well, because it is normally all handed over to the treasury, and an allowance paid back.

They dont keep it

well, that was the arrangement under QE2 - dont know exactly what will happen now, but probably similar

But they pay taxes too? And far more than Rishi Sunak.

The veteran Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who led an inquiry into the Duchy of Cornwall in 2013when she chaired the public accounts committee, said parliament had been unable to establish how duchy income was spent.
“It was very unclear,” she said recently. “There is little transparency.”
She described the status of the duchies as a “deliberate ambiguity” and argued that income from them should be taken into consideration by the government when it calculates the next sovereign grant payment.
“If the money from the duchies is part of the state’s contribution to the monarchy, fine, but we should be able to see how it is spent and look at funding of the royal household in the round.”
The Guardian made eight visits to the archives to retrieve accounts for the duchies to reveal how they have transformed royal fortunes.

I didn’t know quite how all this worked and find it really shocking

The money they earn goes to the Sovereign Grant who then in turn give them some of it back! Don’t worry, they aren’t stuffing their cushions or mattresses with cash!

@Nimbostratus100 I don’t think that’s how it works, did you read the article?

The royal family’s claim to the income from the duchies stems from archaic charters dating back to when the country was divided into medieval fiefdoms.
Ever since the advent of parliamentary democracy, however, generations of MPs have challenged the arrangement and called for duchy profits to be paid to the Treasury instead. Parliamentary debate has often coincided with the accession of a new monarch, amid renewed scrutiny over their public and private sources of wealth.

So the income from the duchies is not given to the treasury.

But they pay taxes too? they do not pay corporation tax on profits from the duchies, as the article explains.

Here’s a couple of interesting screenshots that I found, one is how much they pay per annum to the sovereign grant and the next is how much they cost the tax payer per year!

This income doesn’t go to the treasury to fund us (75%) plus sovereign grant (25%). The article is talking about the Duchies that are inherited as personal wealth. Much the same as the other landed aristocrats here in the U.K.

The problem is that the Guardian is selective in how it reports the facts so we have no balancing of views on both sides.

For instance they report...
the government treats it as entirely separate from the sovereign grant, the annual payment the royal family receives from the government to cover its official costs. That too has risen dramatically in recent times, and costs the taxpayer nearly £86m a year.

Which makes it sound like that the sovereign grant that the RF use to support their duties has risen. When in fact a temporary grant to cover extensive repairs to Buckingham Palacostsce has been giving to Palace officials who are overseeing the project. The money gets handed over along side the sovereign grant that covers the head of states usual duties but is not fir the use of the monarch.

The fact that the Guardian makes out it's all going directly to the King shows how they play loose with the facts. Both the queen and Prince Charles paid tax on the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. There's no reason to think the King and William won't do the same.

And they pay tax on it.

What Whaeanui said!

It’s pretty obvious that the lack of transparency is deliberate.

Well, no because they are not corporations, so would not pay 19% tax. But any income they take they pay income taxes on- at the highest rate like a regular person. QE II started paying income tax decades ago and the rest of the RF do too.

The duchies operate as professionally run real estate empires that manage swathes of farmland, hotels, medieval castles, offices, shops and some of London’s prime luxury real estate. They also have substantial investment portfolios, but pay no corporation tax or capital gains tax.

Exactly.

So they’re not businesses earning huge profits? What are they then?

Wealthy people hide behind, corporate legal entities to divert attention duties and taxes from themselves.
There's a housing shortage, the RF are the largest owners of land in the UK. Yet people are up in arms against the lowly commoner who owns just one rental property or two. Even the mayor with responsibility for building and facilitating building of housing is barely doing that and instead calling for more regulation and rent controls on the individual landlord while John Lewis, Tesco and other corporations are now buying and building expensive properties for rent only.

The Duchy is tax exempt. Charles paid tax on the income he drew from it. That’s income tax. Not corporation tax.

They’re personal property under wealth management. Same as my boss with a portfolio of 23 BTL properties who pays income tax.

This article isn't talking about sovereign grant, this is personal wealth of theirs similar to other landed aristocrats etc.

“the RF are the largest owners of land in the UK”

No they aren’t.

I think the Duke of Westminster or one of the other dukes is, but RF will certainly be up there!

From 2013:
The committee's chair, the Labour MP Margaret Hodge, said: "Details of the treasury's approvals for the duchy's proposed land transactions over £500,000 – of which there are around 15 a year – are not published. Greater transparency is needed. The duchy enjoys an exemption from paying tax even though it engages in a range of commercial activities. This tax exemption may give it an unfair advantage over its competitors who do pay corporation and capital gains tax. The treasury should examine whether the duchy's tax exemption creates an unlevel playing field."

I agree with this ^

If you engage in commercial activity, I think you should be taxed like anyone else.