{"id":2477248,"date":"2026-06-26T18:07:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2477248"},"modified":"2026-06-26T18:07:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:07:46","slug":"the-guardian-view-on-royal-tax-secrecy-it-survives-king-charless-latest-disclosure-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-guardian-view-on-royal-tax-secrecy-it-survives-king-charless-latest-disclosure-editorial\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian view on royal tax secrecy: it survives King Charles\u2019s latest disclosure | Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

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K<\/span>ing Charles has become Britain\u2019s first monarch in modern times to reveal how much tax he pays on his\u00a0private income: \u00a324.6m over the past two years<\/a>. This is not a victory for transparency but a win for those who wish to keep the curtain drawn firmly over\u00a0the royal finances.<\/p>\n

What is presented as a radical move is in fact more\u00a0obfuscation<\/a>. The monarch says he has paid millions in tax, but has not disclosed the income, gains\u00a0or deductions behind the bill. The royals are funded by taking a cut of crown estate profits \u2013 public\u00a0money that would otherwise go to the Treasury.\u00a0That amount is decided by three royal trustees<\/a>: the prime minister, the chancellor and the\u00a0keeper of the privy purse.<\/p>\n

The royals have been forced into making the smallest\u00a0of concessions over their wealth because of the scandal<\/a> involving the king\u2019s brother, Andrew\u00a0Mountbatten-Windsor, and the late sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein. That saw MPs drop their self\u2011imposed gag<\/a> on discussing constitutional monarchy \u2013 and begin an investigation into properties\u00a0leased at cheap rates<\/a> to the royal family.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.<\/span> Photograph: Toby Melville\/PA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The palace has obscured scrutiny over the royals\u2019 public and private sources of wealth for decades. The Windsors insist their duchy income, estimated to be worth more than \u00a31bn<\/a> over the past 70 years, is\u00a0\u201cprivate\u201d. The taxpayer\u2019s contribution is also weighted in their favour. This year, the sovereign grant<\/a> gives the king 12% of crown estate profits: \u00a3132m now,\u00a0rising to \u00a3138m next year. From 2027-28, the rate jumps to 20.5%, supposedly because the windfall from leasing the seabed for offshore green energy\u00a0will have faded. For the palace, it\u00a0is: heads I\u00a0win, tails I win.<\/p>\n

There are two questions here. One is about accountability to parliament. It was the Tory prime\u00a0minister David Cameron<\/a> who in 2011 removed a recurring act of scrutiny by MPs and replaced it with an automatic claim on profits from a publicly owned estate. What had been a periodic parliamentary reckoning became, in Mr\u00a0Cameron\u2019s words, \u201ca generous settlement\u201d. Since then there has been no effective check preventing the royal household\u2019s resources from quietly expanding. There should be one \u2013 and it should come in the form of a regular Commons debate. The crown was not the author of British democracy; it was one of the power centres that democracy had to tame.<\/p>\n

The second question is about tax. In the 19th century Queen Victoria<\/a> paid tax on her civil list<\/a> cash\u00a0from the Treasury, her revenues from the Duchy of Lancaster, and any private income. Her\u00a0heirs negotiated a series of exemptions, which\u00a0meant that by the second world war King\u00a0George VI was paying almost no tax at all. Then, in 1992, the monarchy partially retreated<\/a> when public\u00a0anger made that position unsustainable. Queen Elizabeth II did not embrace\u00a0taxation as a\u00a0civic duty. It was crisis management after royal\u00a0scandals, recession-era resentment and fury\u00a0that\u00a0the public might have to\u00a0pay for repairs to\u00a0Windsor Castle.<\/p>\n

The same idea seems to be behind the latest announcement as the public fumes at the rising costs of essentials<\/a> and seethes at the disgraceful behaviour of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor<\/a>. The issue\u00a0is\u00a0not whether the monarchy pays some tax. It\u00a0is whether a family sitting on vast personal wealth\u00a0should enjoy substantial public funding, opaque private income and state-financed renovation works<\/a> all at once.<\/p>\n