UK royals took more than £1b income: revealed

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Britain’s King Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth II received payments equivalent to over £1bn from two land and property estates that are at the centre of a debate over whether their profits should be given to the public instead.

An investigation by the Guardian has revealed the full scale of income extracted by the royals from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, which run giant portfolios of land and property across England.

The duchies operate as professionally run real estate empires that manage swathes of farmland, hotels, medieval castles, offices, shops and some of London’s prime luxury real estate. They also have substantial investment portfolios, but pay no corporation tax or capital gains tax.

Duchy accounts, held in parliamentary and state archives, reveal how the queen and her first-born son, in his capacity as the Duke of Cornwall, benefited from a huge increase in their revenues from the duchies during her seven-decade reign.

Last year, their duchy income totalled £41.8m. Adjusting for inflation, the pair have received the equivalent of more than £1.2bn in total revenues from the two estates.