How the ‘greedy’ royal family hides their wealth
King Charles III, 77, received about $36 million from the Duchy of Lancaster in the most recent year, while Prince William, 43, received almost $32 million from the Duchy of Cornwall. Both duchies benefit from significant tax exemptions.
Inheritance rules further complicate the picture. The royal family’s exemption from the standard 40 percent inheritance tax allowed Elizabeth’s estimated $2.4 billion personal fortune to pass largely intact to Charles, preserving assets such as historical collections.
A palace source said: ‘If you start to add it all together – the Sovereign Grant, income from the duchies, the various tax breaks and then the security costs that are never fully disclosed – you end up with a system that is almost impossible to properly quantify from the outside. There is not a single transparent figure that shows what the monarchy really costs.’
“That lack of clarity is exactly what fuels public anger about royal finances. When people don’t see a clear overview, they start to fill in the blanks themselves – and that’s when terms like ‘greedy’ start to take hold. It’s not always about the reality of the numbers; it’s about the absence of openness that allows suspicion to grow.”
