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.
The princess, who lives in London, has put money inherited from her parents in two trusts, the Daffodil and Crocus trusts, which are based in the British tax haven of Guernsey.
Ministers have also rejected calls to cut the royal budget out of solidarity with the rest of the population which is facing a decline in spending power next year, the paper says.
In a readers poll in the populist newspaper Telegraaf, 93% said the royal household should be given less money because of the crisis. And 75% said the budget cut should be 20%, the same amount that the government hopes to trim off its spending in 2011.