Riddle of Kids Company’s tax-free payments to staff
SCANDAL-HIT charity Kids Company is facing new questions after giving hundreds of thousands of pounds tax-free to employees.
The revelation comes as controversial Kids Company chief executive Camila Batmanghelidjh and BBC executive Alan Yentob, the chairman of trustees, face a grilling by MPs on Thursday about the charity’s collapse in August.
The Mail on Sunday has been passed a Kids Company document listing 25 ‘clients’ – vulnerable young people registered with the charity – who between them were handed £769,150 tax-free during 2014.
But this newspaper has established that some of those on the list have previously said publicly that they were employed by Kids Company, triggering claims that they were registered as clients to avoid paying income tax and National Insurance.
One person on the list of clients is a 26-year-old woman who attended Oxford University. She was registered as a Kids Company client throughout 2013 and 2014 and in this capacity the charity gave her £19,111 in 2013 and £41,556 last year, making a total of £60,667.
But according to networking website LinkedIn, the woman was employed as a Kids Company ‘research and training manager’ between 2012 and 2015, triggering questions about why she was also accepting financial assistance as a client.
In recent months she has given lectures at leading public schools about Kids Company’s work. It is not known whether she received a separate manager’s salary on top of the funds she accepted as a client. The woman was also a director of a company that she co-founded. Records show it was incorporated on July 23, 2013 and dissolved on June 24, 2014.
Last night a Kids Company source said: ‘The money clients were given was meant to cover food, utility bills, rent and mortgage repayments, but in reality it could have been spent on anything. Nobody paid tax or National Insurance on it. It is very strange that someone would say publicly they were a Kids Company employee when they were also registered as a client and being given thousands tax-free.
‘This money could have been given to them instead of a salary if they really were working for Kids Company. The Charity Commission knows about the list and should have informed the tax authorities by now.’
Another person on the leaked list is a painter and decorator in her late 20s. She received £50,103 in 2014 and £44,613 in 2013, making a tax-free total of £94,716.
But in 2013 she told BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live that she worked for Kids Company doing up houses belonging to the underprivileged. During the show she praised Ms Batmanghelidjh for helping her settle in London after arriving from Jamaica.
It is not clear whether she accepted the client funds of £94,716 on top of any Kids Company salary or instead of it.
It has not been possible to iden- tify all 25 names on the client list, meaning there may be others at the centre of the latest tax riddle. But it is understood some may have used the charity to boost their income. One, an actor who has appeared in a major film with an A-list celebrity, last year accepted £24,177 from Kids Company.
The charity collapsed amid financial chaos and allegations that it helped only a fraction of the 36,000 vulnerable young people that it said it supported.
Kids Company had received £43million of Government money over the past ten years but it is now being investigated by the Charity Commission and the National Audit Office.
A police inquiry has also been launched over allegations of sexual abuse.
This week, MPs on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will quiz Ms Batmanghelidjh and Mr Yentob on why Kids Company became bankrupt and was forced to close with the loss of 600 jobs.