How the £9bn Duke hardly paid a penny in death duties
... but he did leave £5k to gamekeeper and £21m to charities
THE late Duke of Westminster escaped paying inheritance tax on the bulk of his multi-billion fortune, it was revealed yesterday. Probate records showed Gerald Grosvenor, who died from a heart attack aged 64 in August last year, left a personal estate of £743.4 million, reduced to £616.4 million after debts and liabilities.
The rest of his estimated £9.35 billion estate appears to have been in largely tax-exempt family trusts which were passed on to his only son Hugh, 26, now the 7th Duke of Westminster.
The late Duke, who was a close friend of the Royal Family, owned 300 acres in some of London’s most expensive areas around Belgravia and Mayfair as well as shopping centres, thousands of acres of farmland in England, Scotland and Spain, and commercial property around the world. Most of the father-of-four’s personal estate was left in trust with the income going to his widow Natalia, 58, but his trustees were given the power to transfer all or any of the capital to her.
The UK’s inheritance tax of 40 per cent of any assets worth over £325,000 is not payable on anything left to a spouse or on charitable donations. If it had been applied to the late Duke’s entire wealth, the liability would have been around £3.4 billion. The total UK death duty haul in 2016-17 is expected to be £4.7 billion. The late Duke’s three daughters – Tamara Van Cutsem, 37, Edwina Grosvenor, 35, and Viola Grosvenor, 25 – were left £20,000 each from his estate, according to his 40-page will, which was made in 2010. However, society magazine Tatler reported earlier this year: ‘The ancient tradition of [male] primo geniture allowed Hughie to succeed to the title but his sisters receive just as much as he does from the estate.’
Hugh was left the bulk of his father’s personal possessions including his cars, his ‘wearing apparel’, his ‘shotguns, rifles and other firearms’, fishing equipment, watches and other jewellery.
Six-figure sums were left to other family members and £5,000 to each of his godchildren and some friends. The Duke intended to leave a year’s salary to some of his employees and smaller sums to those who had worked less than 12 months. But a later codicil reduced the sum to a total of £250,000, to be divided among his staff.
The will left £25,000 to his per- sonal assistant Vicky Bolton and £5,000 to his head gamekeeper Barry Clare at his family’s 18,000acre shooting estate in Abbeystead, Lancashire. Some £21.1 million was given to charities. Details of the Grosvenor family’s tax planning – which is legal under UK law – last night reignited the debate over the loopholes which allow the rich to largely escape inheritance dues by holding most of their assets in trusts. Critics have called for the Government to publish its central register of trusts as well as the annual accounts of those considered to be of public interest.
John Christensen, director of the Tax Justice Network, said: ‘It is time for us to address the whole issue of whether trusts should be used to hold assets in perpetuity and whether it is appropriate for them to be used at all in this way.
‘Clearly this is not a case of someone being vulnerable and needing assets protected. It is quite simply a means of circumventing inheritance tax laws and it is time for it to be challenged.’