Lhe small streams make the big rivers… In a century, the Windsors have continued to grow their ball by recovering the inheritances of the members of the clan in very opaque conditions. In any case, this is what reveals The Guardianreputed on the left, who rebels against these methods, in total opposition to the rule imposed on ordinary mortals, who must show transparency in order to pay their taxes and avoid fraud… The British daily has moreover initiated a legal action after the death of the Duke of Edinburgh last year to challenge the secrecy surrounding his legacy, the contents of which are sealed for 90 years.
The newspaper explains that, “For decades, lawyers for the royal family have obtained legal orders from High Court judges to keep the contents of wills confidential after the death of the parents. Since 1911, all court hearings at which senior judges have issued these orders have been held behind closed doors. “Derogations which have made it possible to keep a real lead on at least 187 million pounds, or 220 million euros – which corresponds to approximately half of the current private fortune of Queen Elizabeth II. To do the calculations, Guardian has gone through declassified files concerning around thirty legacies for a century.
70 million left by Queen Mum
The amounts vary according to the higher or lower position of the members of the royal family, but we thus discover that the estate of the Duke of Windsor was around 8 million pounds in 1972 and that of Queen Mary, grandmother of Elizabeth II, the 500,000 pounds on her death in 1953. Closer to us, Princess Margaret, sister of the Queen, would have left an estate valued at 8 million… On the other hand, it is impossible to know exactly how much the legacy of Prince Philip, who died last year, or that of Queen Mum, the mother of Elizabeth II, who died in 2002: for the first, the estimates are around 25 million, while, for the second, the BBC advanced the sum of 70 million, including racehorses, paintings, prize ornaments and a magnificent collection of eggs from the Fabergé house…
READ ALSOLegacy of Prince Philip: who will receive the millions of his fortune?
“The seal of secrecy applied to wills has allowed the Windsors to avoid the public seeing what types of assets – such as property, jewelry or money – have been accumulated by members of the royal family and how they were then distributed”, laments the Guardianwhich recalls that a High Court judge confirmed last September that Prince Philip’s will should be withheld from the media, in order, according to the magistrate, to “protect the dignity and reputation of the sovereign’s public role and to other relatives”.Omerta and tax havens
This omerta also has another interest: to escape all media control over the precise distribution of assets and the application of the resulting tax rates… According to the agreement signed between the royal family and the government, a legal clause exempts effect of any Windsor tax in the event of a gift from sovereign to sovereign or from the spouse of a sovereign to a reigning monarch, which protects a large part of the hoard. In contrast, gifts to other family members, friends and staff are taxed at standard rates. But how to control the amounts if they are deliberately hidden from the media? The queen thus immediately imposed the seal of secrecy on the inheritance of her mother in 2002, preventing snoops from putting their noses in the list of personal property.
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The Windsors have always been smart enough to preserve their interests, sometimes letting go of ballast in the event of heavy weather… Since the 1990s, the Queen and Prince Charles have thus “voluntarily” paid taxes on their personal income, in particular from their investments and their respective private domains (Lancaster and Cornwall), which does not prevent the royals to sometimes resort to schemes in tax havens to hide part of the assets, as revealed by the Paradise Papers affair in 2017… In the end, their private fortune remains one of the best kept secrets of the kingdom : Charles’s is estimated at more than 300 million euros and nearly 400 million for the queen, according to The echoesa large part of which was to go to his eldest son upon his death… In short, it’s the jackpot at all royal funerals!