Evangelist Group Stands Alone In Turning Over Records to Senator

Only one of the six Christian ministry groups under examination by Sen. Charles E. Grassley has turned over financial records as part of an informal investigation into their spending and compensation practices.

Iowa’s Mr. Grassley said his office has received financial statements from Joyce Meyer Ministries, in Fenton, Mo., and that his staff will review the materials.

The organization, in a statement, said it planned to submit the information even through it was not “under obligation by law.”

The six groups have been given until today to comply with Mr. Grassley’s request, which comes in response to news coverage and complaints from the public about the ministries’ spending habits.

Mr. Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement that he is holding out hope that the other five groups will submit information to his office by the end of today.

At least one of the organizations, World Changers Church International in College Park, Ga., has said publicly that it does not plan to comply.

The organization said in a letter to Mr. Grassley that inquiries should be made through the Internal Revenue Service rather than through a Senate office, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Citing the “possible misuse of donations made to religious organizations,” Mr. Grassley’s office in November sent letters to the Meyer Ministries and World Changers as well as to Kenneth Copeland Ministries, in Newark, Tex.; New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, in Lithonia, Ga.; and Without Walls International Church (and affiliated Paula White Ministries), in Tampa, Fla.

Mr. Grassley said the investigation is an effort to determine “whether groups are using their tax-exempt status in compliance with the spirit and letter of the law.”

Classified as religious organizations, none of those groups are required to submit to the Internal Revenue Service a Form 990 detailing financial activities. The ministries are also under no legal obligation to provide information to the senator, as the letters are not formal subpoenas.