Costs, Income and Fortune of the Dutch Royal Family

[Marengo]

RTL news did some research about the costs of the Royal House. They say that there is some sort of 'smoke screen', various departments try to 'hide' costs etc. For example the ministery of Traffic & Waterstate: they only listed the costs of the royal airplane on their balance while the other travels of the members of the royal house with other airplanes are not listed. In 2001 they said the costs were 275.000 euros while the real costs were 1.1 million euros for example.

Article of RTL news in Dutch here.

[SASSY]

Is this something that upsets the Dutch people?

Who are the people on your avitar?

[Marengo]

Well, some people will nag about it, some politicians will ask questions in parlament but in the end nothing will be changed I think. But I can imagine that if more 'hidden' costs are traced that there will be a wider discussion about the costs, hopefully resulting in more clarity.
Apart from RTL not many other newsprogrammes or newspapers picked the story up, I only heard it on the radio news.

-
The people in my avatar are the late count and countess of Paris. He was the head of the French royal House while she was born into the Brazilian Imperial family.

[Marengo]

the president of the ' rekenkamer' , Saskia Stuiveling, has critisiced the Prime Minister in parlament for not being open about the costs of the Royal House.

Additional information: then costs for Palace Soestdijk are still placed under the costs of the RF, while the RF actually gave the place up 2 years ago. It is expected that more costs of other departments are hidden in the costs of the RF.

And another thing, the costs that were visible decreased from 114 to 106 million euros a year.

[Marengo]

Royalblog has an article about it:

Overview cost of Dutch monarchy unclear

The Netherlands Court of Audit has sharply critised the Dutch governement for the lack of transparency in money spent for the upkeep of the Royal House. ,,It is disappointing" that Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende refuses to give a more detailed overview of the expenditures, as requested by Dutch parliament.

Look here.

And another article from Dutchnews.nl:

Auditor criticises vague government targets

Wednesday 21 May 2008
Many of the 76 targets the government set out in its 'working together, living together' manifesto are too vague or impossible to achieve, the national audit office said in its report on the government’s first year in office.

Terms such as 'reducing crime by 25% by 2010' were meaningless because the way the statistics were calculated had been changed, the NRC reports the audit office as saying. Government policy was being sold by rhetoric and the excuse 'I cannot be more specific' used too often, one audit office member told the paper.

Read the entire article here.

[Marengo]

As posted on the BRMB by Joris:

Long debate in Dutch Parliament concerning the real total costs related to the Monarchy. PM had to answer many questions. Of course the PM and Ministers admitted that things were complicated, had gone wrong. The PM will co-ordinate things now. And we are promised to see the first audit for the budget year 2010... So one more year extra delay... No Prinsjesdag 2008 presentation but 2009? As I said before I am afraid that even "2010" will be an illusion. I hope I am still alive by then. What are they doing at those ministries? Casting paperclips towards eachother or having a little afternoon nap each day at 3 pm instead of starting the real work? "Complicated", "complicated". Yeah sure. In the meantime new "revelations" will come and the image of the Royal House damaged without any necessity. Of course PM will be irritated by all this because "The Queen and I fully agree on full transparancy".

[Villemann]

After having read this thread it strikes me, that even though there seems to be much debate about the royal finances in Holland, you still have much more debate about the state of the royal finances than we do in Denmark. "All those nice pdf-files," as they are called only provide a small glimpse of our Queen's fortune - if inded she has one, because we are not to know - and does not in any way present a full picture. Our Queen does not pay ANY taxes on her personal income. "Tax assesment" is a very foreign word at our royal palace in Copenhagen. AND the Danish taxpayer is also paying alimony to the Queen's former daughter-in-law, Countess Alexandra. You Dutch, you count your blessings!

[Marengo]

Gerrit Zalm has the task to sort out the costs of the RF that has been spreaded over various departments. From Dutchnews.nl:

Royal budget probed by ex finance minister

Thursday 21 August 2008
Former finance minister Gerrit Zalm is to head up the investigation into the cost of maintaining the royal family, magazine Elsevier said on Thursday.
His appointment marks the next stage in a delicate process of ending the financial chaos surrounding spending on queen Beatrix and her close family.

Read the entire article here.

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The former Mao-ist party critisizes Zalm's appointment. In short: Zalm was minister in the previoius 3 cabinets, and this means he has to sort out his own mess/mistakes.

[Marengo]

According to the leaked budget of the next year the RF will have 900.000 euros extra to spend. For 2009 HM, Willem-Alexander and Maxima will receive 7 million euros.

Article in Dutch here.

[Izapad]

It is said that the Royal family still owns grounds in Manhattan New York. Does anyone knows something more about this rumour?

[lucien]

Originally Posted by Izapad

It is said that the Royal family still owns grounds in Manhattan New York. Does anyone knows something more about this rumour?

That rumour is as old as Wilhelmina would be now,but it is just that.A rumour.

[Marengo]

After it became clear last weekend that princess Christina has the Daffodil trust in Guernsey so she pays less taxes, this weekend the Volkskrant revealed that there also is a Lys foundation, which has palace Noordeinde as postal adress. The Lys foundation is headed by the duke of Parma and the trust has the money that his children inherited from their Dutch grand parents.

A google translation of this Dutch article: Vertaalde versie van http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article1144868.ece/Weer_fiscale_constructie_via_Paleis_Noordeinde=

The 'problem' for some politicians is that those funds are directed from palace Noordeinde while the Parma's and princess Christina are no members of tyhe royal house.

[lucien]

Originally Posted by Marengo

After it became clear last weekend that princess Christina has the Daffodil trust in Guernsey so she pays less taxes, this weekend the Volkskrant revealed that there also is a Lys foundation, which has palace Noordeinde as postal adress. The Lys foundation is headed by the duke of Parma and the trust has the money that his children inherited from their Dutch grand parents.

A google translation of this Dutch article: Vertaalde versie van http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article1144868.ece/Weer_fiscale_constructie_via_Paleis_Noordeinde=

The 'problem' for some politicians is that those funds are directed from palace Noordeinde while the Parma's and princess Christina are no members of tyhe royal house.

Both,the Dafodyl and the Lys are perfectly legal.No-one,unless one is a bloody red creature full of himself,minds this.No-one.
It is all perfectly LEGAL and arranged from the Family´s main office:Noordeinde Palace.
It really absolutely is no-bo-dies business at all.

All members of the RF have their private offices centrally located at the Palace and that,except for some useless red crapule trying to make all see it in a illegal view,is nothing special.Furthermore it is stated in our Constitution that HM can arrange/make arrangements in Her House as She pleases.So,again,no-bo-dies business.Just a family affair.

[Marengo]

From www.dutchnews.nl:

Royal spending clean up planned

Friday 27 February 2009
Queen Beatrix should get a proper budget of €39m to covering all the costs of running the royal household – apart from security, foreign travel and maintaining her palaces, says former finance minister Gerrit Zalm.
Zalm was commissioned to look into the royal finances last year after it emerged that no one actually knew how much the royals cost and that spending was spread across seven government ministries.

Read more here: DutchNews.nl - Royal spending clean up planned

[Marengo]

From our blog:

Big Brother For Dutch Royals?

May 25th, 2009


According to a new proposal from the Netherlands’ largest opposition party SP (Socialist Party), the members of the royal family have to explain precisely how they spend their days and what they are doing with the 119 million Euros that the royal family costs each year.
Newspaper ‘De Telegraaf’ reports that SP parlamentarian Ronald van Raak will ask the minister of internal affairs, Guusje Ter Horst for a annual report on the royal family. The former Maoist party thinks it is high time for queen Beatrix, prince Willem-Alexander and princess Máxima to explain how they spend their money. He also thinks that the royal family should explain what thyey do all day: ‘which visits they paid, which heads of state they spoke, which schools and hospitals they visited, and where they travelled to’, according to Van Raak.
The SP emphasizes that their plea for more openess should not been seen as an attack on the royal house. ‘I think the Queen does an awful lot, only much of it stays hidden’, according to Van Raak. He also says that all the drama around the travelling costs of the royal family, the maintenance costs of of the ‘Groene Draeck’ (sail boat of the Queen) was caused by a lack of openess. ‘It doesn’t hurt to tell what you are doing, it suits a modern monarchy’, claims Van Raak.
This year for the first time the total costs of the monarchy became clear and were presented in one budget to parlament. The total costs of the royal house were 119 million Euros. The largest sums are payed for security (40 million euros) and the renovation of the palaces (43 million Euros). The Queen, prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima together received a sum of 6,1 million Euros.
A few months ago the prince of Orange commented that he and his mother welcomed more clatrity about the financial dealings and that they were happy that a clear budget would be presented. However it remains to be seen what they think of explaining every minute of their time to parlamentarians. It is however very unlikely that the proposal of the SP will receive much support from the other parties in parlament though.
Read the article in Dutch here.

[Isabel]

So, the SP clearly wants an itemized and detailed budget showing every expenditure. It does not appear that the travel of the RF is actually being questioned but more the like the actual costs included. I have always thought that when members of the RF travel or make visits within the Netherlands there is usually some sort of coverage by the media. I suppose that details of the visit and the costs incurred or the issue here more than the when and where.

[Marengo]

According to the prime minister the so called Noordeinde construction will be altered. At the moment the postal adress of the palace is used by princess Christina to evade paying taxes (she evades it within the limits of the law though). The princess will need to find another adress for these trusts.

[lucien]

She's not only not evading,as a inhabitant of Great-Britain GB has provided for foreigners with distinguished funds to have that alternative to have it all on the Channel Islands instead of Britain itself as the taxes would be way too immense,even the UK gov. acknowkedges that.
Further,it is not out of the ordinary for family members in any family of sufficient substance to have the main addresses of every single one member of that family and their businesses at the families main address.
She's not living here so she is not in the reach of our taxes,and rightfully so,it would mean she would have to pay here there and another place which ofcourse is utterly rediculous.Really,this poor woman got so much flack over nothing by people smelling of brussels sprouts,it was nauseating.Some sprouts dropped over the address of big sister.The dear Lady has not ever done a wrong thing in her entire life,she really hasn't,I said it before,she and doing things deliberately wrong is so far apart it is a totally different univers.

[Marengo]

She is not evading it in a legal way indeed, everything the princess does is legal, but it isn't very chique, to say the least. I remember that one of the main poblems with Emily Bremers (ex girlfriend of the PoO) was that her father lived in Belgium, so he could evade paying as much taxes legally. Why the Dutch state has to finance such a thing is beyond me, so it is good that the princess is taking another adress.

This poor woman, as you name her, had the arrogance just to start a second trust, after there was so much upheaval about the first one half a year ago. Why the Queen agreed with this is a mystery to me, it isn't exatly good publicity and let's be honest, the RF has been in the news in a negative way frequently the last years, all for matters related to money. Setting up trusts isn't deliberately wrong indeed, but it isn't exactly the most common construction either, and esp. after the criticism of half a year ago I find this arrogance quite odd.

[Marengo]

From dutchnews.nl:

Princess moves tax trusts out of official reach

Friday 18 September 2009
Two trusts used by princess Christina to avoid paying tax are no longer run through her sister queen Beatrix's official offices, prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende told MPs on Thursday.
This means the government has no control over the trusts, the prime minister is quoted as saying in the Volkskrant. MPs have accused the princess of setting a bad example.
The prime minister is technically in charge of the royal household.

Read the entire article here.