Every so often, a British outlet – usually the Guardian – will attempt to do some real reporting on the British monarchy and their secretive finances. While the details of the Sovereign Grant are made public every year, the SG is far from the Windsors’ only source of income. The monarch has access to the vast resources of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the heir (the Prince of Wales) has access to the Duchy of Cornwall. Both duchies are billion-dollar portfolios of real estate and investments. Personally, I believe that Charles spent a significant amount of time William-proofing the Duchy of Cornwall, so that when William became the PoW, he wouldn’t loot the entire duchy and spend money like a drunken sailor. In any case, the Guardian has done a new series about the secretive money situations of the royal family – you can read one of the pieces here. Some highlights:

The money from the duchies: King Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth II have received payments equivalent to more than £1bn from two land and property estates that are at the centre of a centuries-old debate over whether their profits should be given to the public instead.

The duchies of Lancaster & Cornwall. The duchies operate as professionally run real estate empires that manage swathes of farmland, hotels, medieval castles, offices, shops and some of London’s prime luxury real estate. They also have substantial investment portfolios, but pay no corporation tax or capital gains tax. Duchy accounts, held in parliamentary and state archives, reveal how the queen and her first-born son, in his capacity as the Duke of Cornwall, benefited from a huge increase in their revenues from the duchies during her seven-decade reign. Last year, their duchy income totalled £41.8m. Adjusting for inflation, the pair have received the equivalent of more than £1.2bn in total revenues from the two estates.

The profits: Profits from the Duchy of Lancaster, which consists of 18,481 hectares of rural land, primarily in the north of England and the Midlands, automatically pass to whoever is sitting on the throne. The estate itself is valued at £652m. The Duchy of Cornwall, which encompasses 52,450 hectares, mostly in the south-west of England, is worth more than £1bn. The estate has not kept pace with legislation, passed in 2013, to bring gender equality into royal succession. Its profits still only go automatically to the male heir to the throne.

The Windsors’ claim to the duchies: The royal family’s claim to the income from the duchies stems from archaic charters dating back to when the country was divided into medieval fiefdoms. Ever since the advent of parliamentary democracy, however, generations of MPs have challenged the arrangement and called for duchy profits to be paid to the Treasury instead. Parliamentary debate has often coincided with the accession of a new monarch, amid renewed scrutiny over their public and private sources of wealth.

The Windsors refuse to spend their own money: The royals insist their duchy income is “private” and the government treats it as entirely separate from the sovereign grant, the annual payment the royal family receives from the government to cover its official costs. That too has risen dramatically in recent times, and costs the taxpayer £86m a year. Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the Guardian’s figures for income received from the duchies, which it described as “speculative”.

The Windsors claim to spend their duchy money: The palace has long stated that income received from both duchies is largely spent on the family’s official duties, public work or charitable causes. However, the royals have never provided a detailed account of how money from the estates is spent, describing them as “private financial arrangements”. Charles has reported that 49% to 51% of his duchy income was spent covering public and charitable functions in recent years.

How the duchy money is really spent: As Prince of Wales, a large part of Charles’s duchy income was spent privately, including on secretaries, valets, gardeners, chefs, stable hands and farm workers. The late queen was reported to have used Duchy of Lancaster income to help Prince Andrew pay an undisclosed sum – reported to be more than £9m – to end the sexual assault case filed against him by Virginia Giuffre.

[From The Guardian]

There’s more about how little transparency there is with how the duchies function, where the money goes and how the money is spent. This… seems like a pretty easy fix? I’m sure the part about “wanting duchy profits to go to the government” wouldn’t be an easy fix, but the transparency issue is an easy fix – simply pass a transparency law which applies to the monarchy. Audit the f–kers. Make them do the f–king paperwork and file taxes. Tell the royals they can still keep the profits, but everything has to be above-board and taxed. Why does the British government allow for this issue to still be shrouded in so much secrecy? This isn’t a security issue!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.