HMRC chief to pocket £2million pension after quitting

[dutchman]

The head of the UK tax office who faced intense criticism from MPs while holding a string of top Whitehall roles is quitting.

Lin Homer will stand down as HM Revenue and Customs chief executive in April after four years in the role, the Government has announced.

Despite her scandal-hit time in Whitehall, during which she presided over the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and the tax office, she was made a Dame in the New Year's Honours list.

She is now set to retire with a pension worth an estimated £2million after receiving a reported £85,000 contribution in her first year at HMRC.

Ms Homer faced a scathing attack by MPs for her 'catastrophic leadership failure' when she was in charge of the UKBA.

She went on to become head of Britain's tax office, but was forced to defend the department after securing only one prosecution from a list of 6,800 UK-related secret Swiss bank accounts provided in 2010 by French authorities.

During her time at the UKBA, more than 100,000 of the 400,000 asylum seekers found in the backlog were allowed to stay – in what MPs said amounted to an 'amnesty'.

Around 400 of the 1,000 foreign criminals were also told they could remain in Britain and dozens remained untraced.

Then, whilst she was in charge of HMRC, the tax office was rocked by a scandal over millions of miscalculated tax bills.

Last summer, it emerged the taxman failed to answer 18million phone calls from the public last year – more than a quarter of those it received.

In September Miss Homer admitted half of taxpayers who called the HMRC helpline did not get through during busy periods.

Despite this, it was reported earlier this month that her pension pot has swollen by around by £500,000 since she took over at HMRC in 2012.

Announcing she was stepping down today, Ms Homer said: 'After 10 years as a chief executive and permanent secretary in the Civil Service, the start of the next spending review period seemed to be a sensible time to move on.'

Andrew Tyrie MP, Chairman of the Treasury Committee, said the government now needs to find a 'high quality replacement'.

He said: 'The taxpayer experience of HMRC is still well short of what they have the right to expect.'

[rebbonk]

...the government now needs to find a 'high quality replacement'.

That'll be a first then.