No other privilege matches the majestic wealth of the late Queen Elizabeth II like her admirable health. The British sovereign stood and served till the last week of an unprecedented 70-year reign.
However, what many of her subjects found unhealthy about their monarch was the stealth attached to her wealth, the privileges of tax exemptions that her crown estate enjoyed while her people’s incomes and inherited assets were probed and taxed.
The same goes for her successor, the incumbent King Charles III. “King Charles III built his own empire long before he inherited his mother’s”, the New York Times reported.
“Charles, who formally acceded to the British throne on Saturday, spent half a century turning his royal estate into a billion-dollar portfolio and one of the most lucrative moneymakers in the royal family business.
“While his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, largely delegated responsibility for her portfolio, Charles was far more deeply involved in developing the private estate known as the Duchy of Cornwall. Over the past decade, he has assembled a large team of professional managers who increased his portfolio’s value and profits by about 50 percent.
“As king, Charles will take over his mother’s portfolio and inherit a share of this untold personal fortune. While British citizens normally pay around 40 percent inheritance tax, King Charles gets this tax free. And he will pass control of his duchy to his elder son, William, to develop further without having to pay corporate taxes.”
Various estimates put Queen Elizabeth II’s worth at a minimum of $520 million. The wealth of King Charles III, her heir is also estimated to be $420 million.
Going by this estimate, King Charles III is over 3,000 times wealthier than the median wealth of an adult in the UK which is put at $131,522.
The Late Queen too was worth 4000 times the value of wealth of the adult at the middle when her 53 million adult subjects are ranked from the poorest to the richest.
While opulence is the brand of all monarchies, the opacity of the British monarchy’s acquisition of financial assets and the inequality that its fiscal dealings with the state may entrench has led many more people to ask: what is the economic value of the crown to commonwealth and country?
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