Hibapress / Radio Canada
The British royal family is once again under fire for a lack of transparency regarding its assets and income after media reports revealed that Charles III and William receive money from public bodies while being exempt from certain taxes.
The exact extent of possessions and details of contracts, such as leases, concluded by the Duchy of Lancaster, owned by Sovereign Charles III, and the Duchy of Cornwall, owned by Crown Prince William, are not public.
However, an investigation by the television channel Channel 4 and of Sunday Times published in recent days brought them to light for the first time.
According to these media, the two duchies have raked in millions of pounds in revenue from lucrative land lease deals to the UK’s public health system, currently in crisis after years of underfunding, to government ministries or charitable organizations.
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, the exemption confirms that the royal family scam the public.
This is Crown land that belongs to the public. (…) All this money should go to the Crown estate, or Crown Estatethe patrimony of the Crown, the revenues of which have been returned to the Public Treasury since a legal act dating from 1760he complains to theAFP.
According to this law, 15% of the profits from the Crown estate are then returned in the form of an annual allowance to the royal family in order to maintain its assets and to remunerate the more than 500 Windsor employees.
