King Charles III of Britain is set to release details of his personal income taxes on Thursday, becoming the first British monarch to do so amid public demands for more transparency from the royal family.
Buckingham Palace on Thursday will provide its annual briefing on royal finances. That will include a look at the sovereign grant — the public money that pays for the monarch’s official duties and the royal palaces. The king’s personal tax information will be included, the palace said.
Charles previously released details of the taxes he paid while Prince of Wales, but this will be the first time that a sitting British monarch has revealed the taxes he or she paid on personal income. Anti-monarchy campaigners, lawmakers and members of the public have long called for more transparency from the royal family over its financial arrangements. That pressure has intensified since a scandal involving King Charles’s younger brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The official duties of the king and other working royals are funded by taxpayers through the sovereign grant. But when Charles succeeded his mother to the throne upon her death in 2022, he inherited a large, undisclosed personal fortune that was added to the immense wealth he had already accumulated. In 2023, the Treasury published a document detailing how the king would pay his taxes — which he does on a voluntary basis, as laws on how taxes are paid do not apply to the sovereign.
The king pays income, capital gains tax and inheritance tax all voluntarily, the agreement shows. His private sources of income, like investments and trading profits, are taxed. He also pays taxes on the “privy purse” — independent funds used to cover official duties that are not financed by taxpayers, and the ruler’s personal living and private expenses.
Most of the “privy purse” funding comes from earnings from the Duchy of Lancaster, a large land estate held by the reigning monarch and passed down through generations.
On Thursday morning, before the details of the king’s personal taxes had been published, the anti-monarchy group Republic issued a statement criticizing the planned release.
“The royals can’t be allowed to self-declare their tax,” Graham Smith, the chief executive of Republic, wrote. “They’ll spin this as Charles being a huge taxpayer, but the question is, Why is his income so high?”
Prince William, the king’s son and first in line to the throne, is expected to release tax details in a separate briefing on Thursday.
