Spotify, Netflix, Disney… “Their combined contracts represent at least 135 million dollars”, recalls “Special Envoy”, whose last program devoted to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be broadcast this Thursday, April 13.
We learn in particular that the couple has put in place a “rather clever” financial arrangement, so as not to “lose a crumb” of their fortune.
The Sussexes would thus have created more than a dozen companies in which their money passes.
The latter were born in Delaware, an American state “world famous for its very low tax rates”, specifies the journalist Julien Duponchel.
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A "tax optimization"
The latter called on Éric Vernier, a specialist in international finance and tax havens, to decipher the couple's finances.
“These are arrangements that are found in multinationals (…), analyzed the expert.
Sophisticated arrangements that play on the royalties of one company, which will be paid to another, on the difficulties of one which will have no consequences on the other, to achieve tax optimization.
The specialist nevertheless specified that all this was “perfectly legal”.
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$9 million dormant
"Special Envoy" was also interested in the Archewell Foundation.
Created by the Sussexes, the organization says on its website that it aims to "do good".
In addition to the somewhat vague aspect of this concept, Julien Duponchel noted the absence of a page allowing donations to be made.
The reporter then went to the address of the Archewell Foundation, finding only empty offices there – those of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's law firm.
The reporter also looked at the Sussexes' latest financial report.
The couple declares that they have collected 13 million dollars (11 million euros) for their good works.
If we subtract the approximately 2.9 million dollars sent to associations (2.6 million euros), and the million dollars (904,000 euros) devoted to their operating costs, "9 million dollars are sleeping on the accounts of the foundation", underlines "Special Envoy".
“How to do good without spending what we gave them?”, outbids the journalist, pointing to the “discrepancy between the figures and their philanthropic discourse”.
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“90% of the money has never helped anyone”
The reporter also consulted the financial report of the former Sussex foundation, the Queen's Commonwealth Trust.
In 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle collected 782,500 pounds (885,000 euros) in donations.
Of this sum, 705,000 pounds (798,000 euros) were spent on operating costs.
"90% of the money has never helped anyone," concluded Julien Duponchel.
A finding that further damages the image of this already controversial couple.
Not to mention the comments made by royal correspondent Valentine Low, who returned to the report on the quarrel between Meghan Markle and her former London employees.
"She made them cry, they were exhausted and scared of provoking her wrath," he explained.
Some of them even called themselves the “Sussex Survivors Club”.
Words that could well confirm the decline in popularity of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, already at the lowest in the British polls.