HMRC is witholding £2m in gift aid from Christ Embassy, a charity already under statutory inquiry with the Charity Commission, while it investigates the charity's grants to overseas organisations.
 
Christ Embassy’s accounts for the year ending December 2012 reveal that HMRC has not paid gift aid claims totalling £2,775,142 since 2008 “while they conduct an enquiry into whether all of the charity’s income has been applied to solely charitable purposes”.
 
The report states that they believe that grants made to overseas bodies do qualify as charitable expenditure and that they are currently in the process of preparing evidence for the Revenue.

Grants totalling, £156,777 (2011: £67,558) were made to "partner organisations" in 2012, with £100,000 going to Healing School, which hosts spiritual healing sessions in South Africa, Nigeria and Canada with Pastor Chris Oyakhilome who is the leader of the international Christ Embassy movement and a trustee of the UK charity.

Between 2011 and 2012 the charity’s income grew from £13m to £16.7m, but its expenditure remained relatively steady at £8.1m in 2011 and £8.9m in 2012.

Christ Embassy Ltd, which sells religious literature to raise money for the charity, became a subsidiary in 2012. In 2012 it had a turnover of £1.3m and expenditure of £1.1m, resulting in a profit of nearly £250,000.

Two trustees, Anita Oyakhilome and Nkem Odiakah continued to be paid for their role as pastors at £38,811 and £30,630 respectively.

During the year Christ Embassy was charged £155,895 (£175,896 in 2011) by Loveworld Limited, which is owned by another trustee - Obiora Chiemeka.

The Commission opened a statutory inquiry into Christ Embassy in September 2013.

Christ Embassy has not responded to civilsociety.co.uk's request for comment.