UK NEWS
CHARLES'S PAY RISES TO £16M, BUT HIS TAX BILL GOES DOWN
Prince Charles's private income has risen by 7 per cent
By Richard Palmer, Royal Correspondent
PRINCE Charles’s private income has risen by seven per cent in the past year to £16.3million.
But despite his inflation-busting pay rise, his £3.4million tax bill is down by £5,000 on the previous year after he offset extra costs, including hiring 10 more staff, against his income.
His annual review, published yesterday, shows that Charles, Camilla, William and Harry employ 146 people and have seen their wage bill rise 13 per cent to £5.4million in the past year.
They have taken on extra staff and paid out higher pension contributions, according to Sir Michael Peat, Charles’s principal private secretary.
Defending the lighter tax bill, Sir Michael said: “Unfortunately, our expenses have gone up more than our income. His tax affairs, as you can probably imagine, are whiter than white.”
Charles, 59, received an extra £1.1million from his 135,000-acre Duchy of Cornwall estate, which is now valued at £647million, after a bumper year for farming and a decision to get out of stocks and shares in September and into fixed-rate bonds.
His estate is enjoying a boom because of rising food prices that have left millions of other people feeling the pinch.
The Duchy, which also released its accounts yesterday, has jumped in value by £48million.
Charles, who has campaigned for more than 25 years to highlight the danger of environmental damage to the planet, has reduced his carbon footprint by 18 per cent in the past year.
The amount of carbon dioxide produced by his activities fell by 630 tonnes to 2,795 tonnes during the year to March 31, 2008, after a switch to “green” electricity and a cut in emissions through travel.
However, although he has converted his cars to biofuel, tried to reduce his use of helicopters and encouraged his staff to cycle to work, the Prince has shied away from using public transport.
Amid much fanfare last year, royal aides suggested that Charles might start commuting by train from his Highgrove home in Gloucestershire to his London office at Clarence House.
His sister Princess Anne, who lives near him, regularly does that rail journey to work in London but Clarence House officials said yesterday that Charles has used scheduled train services only twice in the past year.
However, his 18 per cent cut in carbon emissions has already beaten his target of reducing his CO2 footprint by 12.5 per cent between 2007 and 2012. He has now set himself a new target of 25 per cent over the same period.
Travel – Charles and Camilla travelled 37,000 miles on official duties – accounted for the largest chunk of their carbon footprint but they cut the cost of official travel by air and rail 22 per cent from £1.4million to £1.1million.
In other green initiatives, Charles has put in wood-chip stoves at Highgrove and Birkhall in Scotland and energy-efficient boilers at Clarence House.
Sir Michael Peat added: “The Prince has a special knack of putting his finger on issues of underlying and long-term importance and for seeing beyond fashion and political correctness and there are some good examples in the annual review.”
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