UK MPs Call For Greater Scrutiny Into Prince Charles’s Tax Affairs
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The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, should face a Treasury inquiry into the amount of taxes he pay each year, said an influential committee of U.K. MPs on Monday, arguing that some of the tax exemptions that his estate enjoy had created an “unfair advantage” for several of his businesses.
The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, should face a Treasury inquiry into the amount of taxes he pay each year, said an influential committee of U.K. MPs on Monday, arguing that some of the tax exemptions that his estate enjoy had created an “unfair advantage” for several of his businesses.
The Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which serves as a public spending watchdog, noted that Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall estate was worth up to 763 million pounds; and generated 28.8 million pounds last fiscal year, in which no corporation tax was paid.
Among the estate’s assets included commercial properties such as a supermarket depot and a Holiday Inn hotel – neither of which paid taxes under the prince’s exemptions.
“This tax exemption might mean that competing businesses do not have a level playing field on which to operate,” said committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge, as cited by Reuters.
[quote]”The Treasury should examine the impact on the marketplace of the Duchy engaging in commercial transactions while exempt from tax,” she added.[/quote]The vast Duchy of Cornwall was created in 1337 by King Edward III to provide an income for him and his heirs. Labour lawmaker Austin Mitchell described the estate as a “medieval anomaly” in July this year.
Any surplus generated by the estate is passed on to the Prince. Since 1993, the U.K. heir has voluntarily paid income tax on his personal income from the Duchy, minus the costs of his family’s official duties. Once those figures are calculated in, the Prince still had 9.2 million pounds in income remaining last year.
The PAC called for greater transparency into the royal heir’s tax payments, claiming that no one knew for certain how the prince calculated the figure.
“The combined total of income tax and VAT paid by the Prince of Wales was 4.4 million pounds,” the report said. “This amount was not broken down into its two elements and so it is not [clear] precisely how much, and what rate of, income tax is paid by the Prince of Wales (though we acknowledge the duchy having told us that the vast majority of the £4.4m is income tax).”
[quote]Hodge added: “The Treasury does not do enough to properly scrutinise the duchy’s finances. It relies on the duchy to provide it with accurate information without carrying out its own independent checks.”[/quote]Related: UK Ministers To Challenge Royals’ Tax Exemptions
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Treasury official Paula Diggle told the committee that parliament had looked at the issue in depth some 20 years ago and decided it would be unfair to tax Charles twice, on his personal income and on the revenue from the Duchy.
A Duchy of Cornwall spokesman added in a statement: “We will carefully consider the content of the report, and will contribute as necessary to any response by the Treasury.”
“We do not believe the Duchy has an unfair tax advantage over its competitors….the duchy is not a corporation. The duchy is exempt from tax on capital gains, any capital gains have to be reinvested in the business and cannot be distributed.”
