No one knows exactly how high that nest-egg figure goes, mainly because no “sunshine” rules govern the royal fortune. And not much in the way of taxes impact that fortune either. Bequests in the UK valued at over $380,000 face a 40 percent inheritance tax, but Charles will pay not a penny of tax on the royal wealth he has inherited. The British crown carries an inheritance tax exemption.
Capital gains tax? The royals don’t legally have to bother with that either. Charles, in fact, doesn’t have a legal obligation to pay tax on any of his income, but he does make an annual contribution to the UK’s tax authorities. How much he pays —and how much in expenses he claims against his income — remains privileged private information.
In a sense, Charles as wealth-builder has followed in the footsteps of his royal namesakes. In the mid-17th century, Antigua ambassador-at-large Dorbrene O’Marde points out, King Charles I opened the trade between Britain and Africa that would lead to trafficking in human slaves. King Charles II owned the company, O’Marde recently told Democracy Now!, “that moved more Africans off of the continent into the Americas than any other company in history.”
O’Marde chairs the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Commission, one of the many efforts now underway in former British colonies to get Britain, as O’Marde puts it, “to reassess its role in the genocide, in the plunder, in the violence that it exerted on African people.” Leading those efforts: a commission created by Caribbean heads of state to make the case for bringing justice to “the victims of Crimes against Humanity” that range from genocide to racial apartheid.
This Caricom Reparations Commission has developed an action plan that details proposals to redress a wide range of the wrongs inflicted over 400 years of British and European empire-building. One of these proposals would address the hypertension and type-two diabetes within today’s African-descended Caribbean population. No group globally has a higher incidence of these chronic ailments.
Another part of the plan seeks to undo the lasting economic damage done under the British imperial slogan that “not a nail is to be made in the colonies.” That approach denied the Caribbean “participation in Europe’s industrialization process” and limited the region to producing and exporting raw materials within a system “designed to extract maximum value from the region and enable maximum wealth accumulation in Europe.”
This past June, Charles recognized this history and bolstered his image as someone who cares deeply about matters that go beyond the traditional ceremonial obligations of British monarchs. He told British Commonwealth leaders meeting in Rwanda that he “cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact.”
Charles has also been vocal — for decades — on the environmental catastrophes that so threaten humanity. Now, as king, he has an opportunity to help deepen the world’s understanding of the threats and the injustices humanity faces. But taking that course would require from Charles an intensity of introspection that no British royal has ever yet attempted.
The British empire, points out Institute for Policy Studies analyst Basav Sen, “quite literally” opened “the fossil-fueled Industrial Revolution, the driving force behind climate change.” And this leadership role rested on the “plunder of other parts of the world,” colonial centuries that “provided much of the capital investment for the large-scale buildout of manufacturing facilities and machinery.”
That plunder has left the empire’s colonized societies deeply indebted and distinctly vulnerable to the horrors of a climate change they did not cause, as the current tragedy in Pakistan — where flood waters have submerged a third of the nation — is vividly now attesting.
Pakistan, notes environmental journalist Emily Atkin, has so far “racked up $30 billion in damages from this year’s flooding.” The UK has so far come up with $1.7 million in aid.
British colonialism, Atkins adds, has left for nations like Pakistan “a legacy of massive climate vulnerability.” For the UK — and Charles — that era has left “a legacy of massive wealth.”
Charles could lead the way to addressing both these legacies. For starters, says Environmental Grantmakers Association president Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, he could make a call for debt forgiveness. And Charles could dramatically signal the importance of that call by taking one simple step. He could pledge a significant chunk of his own immense personal fortune to the Pakistani relief effort.
Step up, Charles. Share the wealth.
