Public perception and the future of monarchy

Sky News, The full story first King has published tax returns, but the palace isn't being quite as transparent as they'd like you to think. This is why I This july fourth at Lowe's, get up to forty five percent off select major appliances. Plus, save eighty dollars on a select Charboyal Performance Series gas Grill. now two hundred ninety nine doll. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. Lowe's, we help you save Valid through seven eight while supplies last, selection varies by location. SilLos d. com for more details. Visit your nearby Lowe's on Tonenell Avenue in North Bergen How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup? Do airPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity i I'm Et Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. Hi everyone, new here and a very big day for the House of Windsor, because King Charles has just revealed how much tax he pays. Buckingham Palace is presenting this as a new era of royal transparency. Of course, most of us don't get to reveal our tax bill, we just get one in the post. but in the case of the monarch, tax is different. Charles pays it voluntarily And now for the first time, we've been told just how much. twelve point nine million pounds in the most recent year and more than thirty million pounds since he became king. Historic, yes, transparent, notot so much Because while we now know the final number, we certainly don't know all the workings behind it. We don't know the king's full private income. We don't know exactly what was deducted as official expenditure or spent on public duties before tax. We don't even know the full value of his private wealth. What we don't have is the bigger question here, I think We know he's paid that much tax. you're like, wow, that's a huge amount of tax If we don't know his complete earnings. How can we ever look at what he pays in tax meaningfully? That's the bigger question here. I spoke to our royal correspondent, Laord of Bundock, joined by forensic accountant, Professor Attl Sha. La. We're going to have a proper look at these numbers, but before we do Just explain how does the king earn his money? and do we have any idea of how much he's actually worth A, That's tricky, isn't it? Okay, look, let's just look at what money he gets from me and you. He gets the sovereign grant, which is a set percentage of the money that comes from the crown estate. The sovereign grant is the lump sum he gets to basically fund the work he does. So it's quite simple. He's head of state, he's head of nation, he's head of the Commonwealth It's to pay for that and for the working royals. For twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six, it was one hundred thirty two point one million pounds, of which sixty million pounds was going straight to the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace. Remember that's this ten year programme that's coming to an end very soon. It's not just the sovereign grant though, We know he gets money from the Duchy of Lancaster. Just explain what the Duchy of Lancaster is. We often hear it mention Yeah, so these are these ancient historic royal estates, they're private. The one of the monarch is the Duchy of Lancaster and the heir, in this case, Prince William, is the Duchy of Cornwall. and it's a mega portfolio of land, of commercial property as well. As the name suggests, the Kings is focused around parts of the North, but it does include other kind of surprising assets there as well That is worth six hundred eighty seven million pounds those assets if you were to try and sell them off. It's a lot of money. So he's got the sovereign gown. He has the Dutuchy of Lancaster and one must also presume being a rich individual, he will have private investments that he gets a return on as well. Okay, so let's get to the nitty gritty. How much is his tax bill or actually we shouldn't call it a tax bill because he doesn't have to pay tax. We should call it a tax donation. Donated. Okay. so he paid Hself in a way, because it's hisis Majesty Reverend Y and customs. So for twenty four twenty five, which is as far as we go to, he paid twelve point nine million pounds. It' A lot of money, and it puts him in presumably the top taxpayers in the country. Well, if you believe these lists, he's in the top one hundred taxpayers That's what they've told us don't have is the bigger question here, I think, because we know he's paid that much tax. You're like, wow, that's a huge amount of tax. If we don't know his complete earnings. How can we ever look at what he pays in tax meaningfully? That's the bigger question here. Let's bring in Ato at this point. I mean, Ao So in essence, from what Laura was saying, we know what the king has paid in terms of tax. We just don't know how they arrived at that number. Absolutely. And also in a way, we can tell more or less that it's a very low number compared to the income that he gets. So like if he was a top rate taxpayer at forty five percent A fourteen point five million do tax bill suggests an annual income of thirty million which cannot be true because we've got loads of other interests, including, for example, balmoral, Sandringown, land, commercial property, etceter. And then of course this whole portfolio of investments, which We have been told he has But we haven't been told anything about the value of the portfolio or the income that the portfolio generates. So Definitely it's not full taxes. Given the amount of money that he has paid in tax, given estimates of the scale of his personal estate even a couple of years ago was hovering just a little bit less than two billion pounds, is it unfair for me to assume King is earning annually a figure in excess of a hundred million pounds I would say two hundred at least. two hundred million at least. Let me bring Laorda back in at this point, Laorda This is where it all starts to get just a little bit tricky for me because There is so much that we don't know. Let's just talk specifically about the Duchy of Lancaster for a second, this revenue razor for the king and of course we've got the Duchy of Cornwall as well for Prince William. Huge amounts of money can be earned from this. But we can't even trust the figures there becausecause as I understand it any money that the king spends in pursuit of his public duties is tax deductible Yeah, that's one of the oddities about all of this Look, I don't know how much you earn, do I? No, you certainly don't I'm going to guess it's slightly less perhaps than the King's assets. I don't know how much tax you pay. I don't know what investments you have because as private individuals, we do have a right to that privacy So I would just always have that on your shoulder when we're asking these sorts of questions and there's lots of questions always about the Duchies especially and the legitimacy of them as private estates. I get that, but This is what they are at the moment. But these are eye watering sus. Don't get me wrong here. I'm holding it at the front of my mind largely because the taxpayer is shelling out the best part of four hundred million pounds to do up Buckingham Palace and today we learned that the king isn't actually ever going to sleep there Yeah, does that annoy you? Yeah Why is that annoying you? Because I would argue King and Camilla have lived in Clarence's House decades now. Would you really make the upsticks to move to apartments in Buckingham Palace just so we can say That's where they live. No, not necessarily, but what I wouldn't do is spend four hundred million pounds updating a palace so that the king can earn more money through tourist revenue. becausecause that's what's going to happen, isn't it? The line from the Royals is that they're not going to stay there. It's going to be a kind of a ceremonial headquarters. There'll be greater access for the public who have to pay to get in the money going straight to the King They have to pay a lot of money to get in actually. I was looking at this. It's not open much of the Year Buckingham Palace It's in the summer months. If you were to turn up today thirty seven pounds to look round those rooms. That's the cost of. via the crrown Eate to look round our shared national asset that is Buckingham Palace's state Roms. Looked Do we want to get hung up about where the King and Queen live? Do we need them to live in Buckingham Palace? They've got plenty of places that they can go and live in, don't they? They have. He's got Highgrove, he's got Clarence House, he's got the private estates in Norfolk, S Nandingham, and obviously Balmorle as well. It's the perception, isn't it of Buckingham Palace? I suppose you look at the balcony, look, the royal standard will fly at Buckingham Palace if the king is five hundred meters down the road in Clarence House. It has done ever since Yeah he became king. Why doesn't that money just go straight to the treasury? It's a big question isn it? But it's not even about profits necessarily for this, is it? It's more about the public having access to this building more. So it's very limited at the moment. If me and you can look round this more often, more frequently thenen is that a better thing? I mean, how much money it makes It's a drop in the ocean compared to what we're talking about with thevereign grant, isn't it?? They're going gonna let me behind the velvet robe, and you know that. You know that. ato though, I just want to bring you in again. Look, we keep using this word transparency and quite patently that we do not have transparency when it comes to the figures. but there are other little details in here that also were perhaps not making absolutely clear. I mean, the King doesn't pay taxes in the same way that the rest of us does. He's not paying council tax. He is voluntarily paying income tax. I just wonder, do you think that is sustainable now Do you think that it is tolerable in the long term that we don't have access to the books, just the bottom line of one page of them When you dig deep, it's like They own something, but they don't own it They inherit something but they don't inherit it. I mean, hang on, what is it? Do they actually own it? So I think a lot of these hypocrisies and contradictions have been hidden under the carpet for a long time And really as you rightly say, Neil, they're completely, completely unsustainable. So if the family wants to be sustainable, i. e, they want to keep going as being a royal family public has to accept them, the public to accept them these days, they really do have to modernise in the way they didn't for so long because it was just accepted, wasn't it? And I think the key to modernisation is transparency because if they're not transparent, It is completely weakening them as an institution. Which I understand, but if we talk specifically about the sovereign grant for a second, the amount of tax paid by King Charles and Prince William is a fraction of the money that they receive back. If they are, as Atel points out, as everyone basically understands, earning hundreds of millions of pounds a year Why are we paying them anything in the first place? I thought this was a life of service, not money for a job well done I think the palace would say the work that the royal familyily does for the nation here and overseas as ambassadors for the nation overseas, and they would point to perhaps most recently the state visits to the US, for example where the king at a really difficult diplomatic moment went to Congress, delivered his message in perhaps a way no other head of state could do. It was the king saying the words, and they packed a punch at that point. And you know the palace might point to the fact that as a result of that, tariffs on Scottish whisky were lifted, what have you? But that sounds like the job of a diplomat hired by the fororeign Commonwealth office who should be paid for what they do, not a head of state But ultimately there is a difference though, because it's the king, he is a diplomat, isn't he? Because is repepresenting us, the people of Great Britain there. He comes as monarch. There is definitely something he brought to the table. I'm just saying he is operating within the world, which he can. True transparency looks very, very different, but this is a slight shift. Is it the first straw in the win? Maybe, I don't know Ato, what about the criticism that's always made of Harry and Meghgan? You know, look at them dining out on their royal reputation, they monetize their titles. I mean, what is the House of Windsor doing? if not that? And of course taking advantage of all the other taxes that they don't have to pay. Yeah, I mean, we haven't even begun to speak about inheritance tax, Neil All of this is inherited wealth, inherited property, inherited land And again, Britain has a long history of nobility and elite power But then when we went towards democracy, and that's also why we have inheritance tackax, right? So here again, why does that not apply to any of the assets of the king? We need to not just look at accounting, but also revisit the whole governance of the estates of the royal family. Governance is a real issue actually. I mean, if you look and we've got the very glossy Duchy of Lancaster report here, there's a photo of you know the senior people at the Duchy. and it's a room pretty much full of white men pretty privileged white men as well. And they do have to ask themselves quite considerably now because if that's the leadership of the Duchy How does it actually translate back to the real people that are concerned that are living within what is this massive portfolio? Well look, Lauret, o. Given the fact that a slimmed down working royalty was costing us more than the chubby one from a few years ago. We've got Buckingham Palace being renovated to the cost of almost four hundred million and the king and queen choosing to stay there. This level of transparency was designed to carry favour with the British public. I think it's going to work Yeah, I mean, that is a problem. Just look at those numbers exactly. So twenty seven twenty eight, the sovereign grant and we're taking off the Buckingam Palace thing that's It's ninety nine point nine one hundred million pounds basically. If you go back just three years it was just over fifty, fifty one million pounds here. So it's like a doubling within that short space of time How is it costing so much more? Because the palace telling us, well, we've got to maintain these really old buildings. We need to invest more in cybersecurity. We're a massive risk. They are of course a massive risk. It's the rooyal family. I get that. We need to improve the heating systems. They've just sort of been left to rack and re'ar in and we're told, yeah, new boilers at Windsor Castle is eleven million pounds