Thoughts on the King and Prince of Wales tax disclosures

[Kirschcherries]

According to the BBC KC and PW have released details of the tax they paid in the 2024-2025 Tax Year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8x2151y8q4o

Apparently KC is in the Top 100 tax payers - The Sunday Times Rich List for 2025 placed him at 238.

I think it’s good they have done this and believe they are entitled to use the same legal tax avoidance measures everyone else can use. I don’t think we have a right to know every detail of their personal wealth but this is balanced against transparency regarding the Sovereign Grant and Duchies.

Golly. When you pay tax whataboutuz, do you take what you earned in the year and add to it every other thing you own some or all of (car, house, savings, pension etc) and calculate your tax on the grand total? No, because tax is paid on your annual income, not your net worth.

Surely this is a disingenuous argument? No one who is a taxpayer in the UK would be so confused about how income tax works?

Maybe having a bit of fun.

He is the first billionaire king.

I think you only get to that figure with some decidedly dodgy accounting involving assets Vharles only holds in right of the Crown! And it’s a ridiculous statement too - William the Conqueror personally owned about a fifth of England. Relatively speaking, I think he was far wealthier.

Interesting piece from the normally lap-it-all-up Amanda Platell here:

https://archive.ph/YpHlJ

A pop star with a net worth less than half C3's is paying twice as much in tax. (W of course pays even less - around a third of Harry Style's bill).

Half measures like this release of broad figures while omitting the detail are starting to look like an own-goal.

That article is idiotic. We don’t pay tax on Net Worth but on Income.

Do you think your savings should be taxed annually?

From the article:

The income on which the King owes tax hasn’t been declared. We don’t know about earnings from the financial and property investments of his private estate. We’ve no idea how much he deducted from his Duchy of Lancaster income of around £25million for official expenses.

Doesn't look like an idiotic point to me.

Yes . The whole point about this so called transparency is William and Charles decide for themselves what to declare as taxable .

His has always been the case .

And I when I say ‘ always’ I mean of course from the 1990s when the Windsors were finally forced to pay some voluntary tax

We've had more detail from prime ministers and senior politicians who can of course be democratically removed every few years (if not less) unlike the Windsors:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgnvqvx7dvo

I would like to know what the taxable base is on these two declarations from C and W.
'Official expenditure' deductions could count for a helluva lot. So it's not transparent in the slightest, I imagine they want us plebs to think that's a lot of tax they are paying and not look beyond that.
Besides which I thought running their offices and carrying out royal duties were covered by the SG? So why the deductions

What’s idiotic is an article comparing the net wealth of two people in a discussion about how much tax they paid in one year. It has no bearing.

Plenty will be drawn in by this though.

Do you think everyone should pay taxes annually based on their net wealth?

🦗🦗🦗

And a bit of France.

Yep.

Otherwise it just looks like a sop to the public.

Besides which I thought running their offices and carrying out royal duties were covered by the SG? So why the deductions

Excellent point.

Besides which I thought running their offices and carrying out royal duties were covered by the SG? So why the deductions

Kensington Palace offices, staff etc are paid for out of the Duchy of Cornwall.

The King contributes to the cost of official duties of the RF from the Duchy of Lancaster.*

*From 'Finances of the Monarchy' research briefing (updated 30/06/26)
-page 6: figure
-page 12: The Privy Purse is an historical term used to describe the Monarch’s private income. It meets both official expenditure incurred by the King and other
members of the Royal Family (that not covered by the Sovereign Grant) and
private expenditure.

So the already eye-watering and soon to be increased Sovereign Grant doesn't actually cover all the expenditure required and unspecified further expenses have to be underwritten with 'private' income?

It's quite hard to see any other members of a family firm tolerating underwriting expenses incurred on behalf of the 'firm'.

Why can't official duties connected to the Duchies be covered by the SG? I thought that was what it was for.

Does that mean when William helicopters down to Cornwall or such like, those costs are subtracted before he pays any errrrmmm voluntary tax. .
'Unspecified household expenses'... winner winner!

So you won’t answer:

Do you think everyone should pay taxes annually based on their net wealth?

Hard to see anyone on the planning being taxed on net wealth, too.

Why are you directing that at me? You haven't asked me that question before

Well?

Well what. I have no idea what you are talking about. You have not directed that question to me before, and we all know how the tax system works in this country... well... apart from Royals of course who are exempt from certain taxes.

Well what I want to know is ,,, why are there three grasshoppers?