The controversy is growing in the United Kingdom around the royal family. His lack of transparency regarding his assets and income has once again come under fire from criticism.
The exact extent of holdings and details of contracts, such as rental leases, entered into by the Duchy of Lancaster, owned by King Charles III, and the Duchy of Cornwall, owned by Crown Prince William, are not public. But an investigation by Channel 4 and the Sunday Times published in recent days brought them to light for the first time.
Millions of pounds in revenue
According to these media, the two duchies have raked in millions of pounds in revenue from lucrative land rental contracts to the NHS, the public health system currently in crisis after years of underfunding, to ministries or agencies. charitable. At the same time, the two duchies, which combine land, property and other assets across England and Wales, do not pay corporation tax or capital gains tax.
For Norman Baker, a former MP for the centrist Liberal Democrats and long-time critic of the royal family, this confirms that the latter is “ripping off the public”. “This is Crown land that belongs to the public […] All this money should go to the “Crown Estate”, the Crown patrimony whose revenues have been returned to the Public Treasury since a law dating from 1760, he is indignant.
According to this law, 15% of the profits from the “Crown Estate” are then paid back in an annual allocation (the Sovereign Grant) to the royal family in order to maintain its assets as well as to remunerate the more than 500 employees of the Windsors. Next year, this allocation will amount to 132 million pounds (159 million euros).
Nothing illegal thanks to a 1760 agreement
The royal family assures that the profits from the duchies of Lancaster of Cornwall finance the public, charitable and private activities of the sovereign and his heir. These two duchies had been excluded from the 1760 agreement because at the time they generated very little revenue. But more than two centuries later, they are valued at around 1.8 billion pounds (2.17 billion euros), and last year raked in 50 million pounds in profits.
Our file on the United Kingdom
Thanks to this, Charles III is one of the richest people in the United Kingdom with a personal fortune estimated at 610 million pounds (735 million euros). His Duchy of Lancaster will notably receive 12 million pounds over 15 years by renting a warehouse to a London hospital to park its ambulances. For his part, William signed a contract worth 37.5 million pounds over more than 25 years with the Ministry of Justice to rent the land on which Dartmoor Prison is located.
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