Entertainment
Prince William Broke A Royal Family Tax Tradition
He’s doing things differently from his father, King Charles.
When it comes to royal finances, Prince William takes a different approach to his father, King Charles III.
On July 24, the Prince of Wales’ Duchy of Cornwall estate published its integrated annual report, which revealed that William had earned £23.6 million ($30.4 million) in the 2023/2024 financial year. While his salary was made public, William — who inherited the estate in 2022 when King Charles ascended the throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth II — did not reveal how much he paid in taxes. Not doing so broke tradition with his father, given that Charles chose to disclose his tax payments while he was in charge of the estate.
The private Duchy of Cornwall estate is given “Crown exception,” meaning the senior royal isn’t required to pay income or corporation tax on earnings from the estate. However, as per Hello!, Charles began voluntarily paying tax on his Duchy of Cornwall estate earnings as of 1993, when he still held the titles of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cornwall. For the financial year ending 2021, the British monarch revealed that he paid over £5 million ($6.4 million) in taxes, the Telegraph reported, and £5.89 million ($7.5 million) in 2022.
The Duchy of Cornwall estate was created by King Edward III in 1337 to gather funds for the heir to the throne. The estate is said to be worth around $1 billion, spanning 130,000 acres across England and Wales, and includes farms, residential and commercial properties, as well as forests, rivers, quarries, and coastline.
A statement released by the Duchy of Cornwall on July 24 said the estate is “pleased” with its earnings over the past 12 months.
“This year’s distributable surplus was £23.6 million [$30.4 million]. We are pleased this was achieved while still spending a record amount on repairs and maintenance and investing in our staff and our sustainability programs,” the statement read.
Despite doing things a little differently from his father, William said in 2019 that he would head the Duchy of Cornwall just like King Charles when the time came.
“Rest assured I’m not going to rock the boat; I’ll do much the same as what my father’s doing. I’m not so into the architecture — that’s the only thing,” he said on the ITV documentary, Prince Charles: Inside The Duchy of Cornwall.
