None of the Windsors are big on public disclosures, but King Charles arguably disclosed the most information out of his entire family, disclosures about income, staffing and taxes when he was Prince of Wales. Now that Prince William is PoW, he’s “doing things his own way,” which means… nowhere near the kind of disclosures his father used to make. Per ITV:
Prince William has chosen to withhold more information about his finances, as the Prince of Wales, than his father did before him. In the end-of-year accounts for the Duchy of Cornwall, the estate William inherited when he became the heir to the throne, shows that he has withheld the amount of tax he pays on his earnings. The accounts for the last full year – in which Charles was the Prince of Wales – revealed he voluntarily paid £5.9 million in income tax.
While Prince William, as the 25th Duke of Cornwall, still pays income tax in the same way as the 24th Duke (Prince Charles), his office has decided not to reveal the amount as they are not obliged to do so. Tax is paid by the Prince of Wales on his earnings from the Duchy of Cornwall after deducting official expenditure on his family.
The integrated Annual Report released on Wednesday by the Duchy of Cornwall shows that the surplus available to William, Kate and their family was £23.6 million – a small reduction from the year before caused by property management. The surplus pays for the official, charitable and private lives of the Prince and Princess of Wales and their household. Tax is paid at standard UK tax rates once official costs have been deducted from the £23.6 million figure.
Senior royal sources indicated that the amount of income tax William pays is higher than his father, but Kensington Palace declined to say how much tax was paid in 2023/24, nor how much money was left from the surplus on which tax was owed. It meant the report into finances for the Prince of Wales’ office was much less transparent than the one in 2021/22 – the last full year that Prince Charles was entitled to the Duchy of Cornwall money.
William and Kate employ less staff than Charles and Camilla did when they had the Duchy of Cornwall funds. The current Prince and Princess of Wales employ 66 staff – whereas his father used to employ around 100. 67% of William and Kate’s staff are female and 33% are male. Kensington Palace does not have a target for the diversity of their staff but did reveal 14% of their employees are from minority backgrounds. But the most senior team around William and Kate, the management body that reports directly to them, are all white men.
The Executive Committee of the Household is made up of five men: William’s Private Secretary, Ian Patrick, Kate’s Private Secretary, Tom White, Chief Operating Officer, Sean Carney, Head of the private household, James Benbow, and Communications Secretary, Lee Thompson.
Shock of all shocks, William is secretive and squirrelly. He does not want peasants to know the actual breakdown of his office staff, he doesn’t want people to know his income or who pays for what, and he does not want anyone to know about his tax situation. I find the gender situation in Kensington Palace fascinating – a bunch of white men in “executive” positions, bossing around a staff of mostly younger women. Judging from what we can see of KP’s operations, that’s my assumption, that these are mostly younger, inexperienced female staffers who don’t actually know what the hell they’re doing. The ethnic breakdown… “14% of their employees are from minority backgrounds.” I’m going out on a limb and saying that I bet that 14% is mostly Asian and not Black. Anyway, I’m still waiting for people to mock William’s “obsession with privacy” considering the man won’t even reveal his taxes.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.