Spanish King earns €293,000 a year, Prince €146,000

Spain's royal palace released a breakdown of the royal family's finances for the first time Wednesday, saying King Juan Carlos earns €292,552 ($382,597) a year and his son, crown Prince Felipe, roughly half that amount.

The palace said that of the monarch's gross income, just under half was personal salary and the rest was designated for expenses. The king pays 40 percent in tax on the total sum.

Queen Sofia and the princesses Cristina, Elena and Letizia receive €370,000 ($483,553) between them, while Felipe earns €146,375 ($191,297). The palace is assigned an annual budget by Parliament. It totaled €8.4 million ($11 million) in 2011.

The royal family promised recently to release the information as part of the king's commitment to making his household's accounts transparent. The figures were posted on the palace website http://www.casareal.com.

The release comes as the king's son-in-law Inaki Urdangarin, husband of Cristina, is reportedly suspected of siphoning funds from public contracts awarded from 2004 to 2006 to a nonprofit foundation he then headed.

Although Urdangarin has not been charged, the allegations have put the royal family in the spotlight at a time of hardship and economic crisis for many people in Spain, where unemployment stands at 21.5 percent.

In his yearly Christmas speech, the king expressed concern over what he described as the declining confidence among Spaniards in public institutions, a remark seen as a reference to the scandal.

The palace had its budget cut this year by around 5 percent and palace employees, including the king, had their salaries cut by up to 15 percent last year as part of a government austerity plan.