LONDON, UK
Britain's King Charles will inherit not just the throne after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, but also her private fortune -- without having to pay inheritance tax.
British monarchs are not
required to reveal their private finances but according to the Sunday
Times Rich List 2022, the queen was worth some £370 million ($426
million), up £5 million from the previous year.
The bulk of the late
sovereign's personal wealth will pass to Charles intact, without the British
government getting a slice.
The real royal wealth -- the
Crown Estate lands and the Royal Collection of art and jewellery, plus official
residences and the Royal Archives -- is held by the monarchy as an institution.
As such, they will only pass
to Charles in trust.
Similarly, The Crown Jewels,
estimated to be worth at least £3 billion, only belonged symbolically to the
queen and are automatically transferred to her successor.
The queen's private wealth
will be added to Charles' own, which has been estimated at some $100 million by
the site celebritynetworth.com.
In comparison, Elizabeth's
late husband, Prince Philip, left a more modest estate worth £10 million,
including an art collection of some 3,000 works, most of which were given to
family and friends, the Sunday Times reported.
A court in 2021 ordered his
will to be sealed for 90 years.
As king, Charles inherits the
Duchy of Lancaster, a private estate of commercial, agricultural and
residential assets owned by royalty since the Middle Ages.
The monarch is entitled to use
its income and largely uses it to meet official expenditure. In the financial
year 2021-22, it delivered a net surplus of £24.0 million.
On the other hand, Charles
will lose the Duchy of Cornwall, another private estate, in southwest England. It
brought in a revenue surplus of some £23 million in 2021-22.
The duchy, created in 1337 by
Edward III for his son and heir, Prince Edward, will go to Charles' eldest son,
Prince William, who is now heir to the throne.
Charles will also receive the
annual Sovereign Grant from the UK Treasury, which is set at 15 per cent of the
profits from the Crown Estate, and which the monarch surrenders to the
government under a deal dating back to 1760.
The Sovereign Grant covers
costs of official engagements for the monarch and other senior members of the
royal family, paying the salaries of their staff and the upkeep of royal
palaces.
In 2021-22, it was set at
£86.3 million -- equivalent to £1.29 per person in the UK -- and included
funding for the renovation of Buckingham Palace.
The Crown Estate's portfolio
includes commercial and retail properties, including prime locations in central
London, as well as rural and coastal land across the country, and the waters
around England and Wales.
That makes it one of Europe's
biggest property empires, with a huge commercial interest in areas such as
developing offshore wind power generation.
In the financial year to March
2022, it posted a net revenue profit of £312.7 million, up from £269.3 million
in 2020-21.
Inheritance tax in Britain is
charged at 40 per cent on estates above a £325,000 threshold.
But the new king will not pay
inheritance tax on the personal wealth he will inherit from his mother due to
rules drawn up in 1993.
Those assets passed from one
sovereign, or a consort of a sovereign, to the next monarch, are exempt.
The rules were drawn up to avoid
wiping out the royals' private wealth in the event that a series of monarchs
died in quick succession and their estate was reduced by 40 percent every time.
The rules, set out in a 2013
government memorandum of understanding, also ensure the monarch has his or her
own private money and thus financial independence from the state. - AFP
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