New Year's honour for HMRC chief executive

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Chief Executive Linda Homer has been named on the Queen’s New Year’s honours list.

Homer has been granted one of the highest accolades in the annual list - Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath (DCB).

Achievements

The past year has been one of notable achievements for HMRC; under Homer’s leadership it has lowered the tax gap, collected more tax and introduced new digital services.

An HMRC spokesperson said: “Since joining in January 2012, Lin Homer has led HMRC to deliver more and at a lower cost to taxpayers than ever before. Last year alone we brought in record breaking revenues of more than £517billion and we increased compliance yields to £26.6billion, up by 43 per cent since 2011-12.

“All of this was delivered at the same time as improving our customer service and continuing to roll out a transformation programme that will see us reduce our estate costs by £100million per year by 2025.”

Intrigue

Intriguingly, the honours list described Homer as “Lately chief executive, HM Revenue and Customs,” leading commentators to wonder whether this means Homer has left her role at HMRC, but this has been denied by an HMRC spokesperson, who said Homer still holds her position.