Eleven tax officials from HMRC and a number of Big Four partners were top of the Queen’s Birthday Honours list announced for her 90th celebrations for the accountancy profession
John Whiting, tax director at Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has been awarded an CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in recognition of his services to tax simplification. In 2008 he was awarded an OBE for public service.
Whiting is a former partner at PwC and is part-time tax director at the OTS with a remit to simplify the 17,000 page tax code. He is also a non-executive director of HMRC and a board member of Revenue Scotland.
Consulting partner at Deloitte, Jackie Henry has been awarded an MBE for her service to the economy in Northern Ireland.
She leads the public sector business in Northern Ireland, fulfilling the role of senior partner and is responsible for Deloitte’s business in Belfast.
Stella Cox, champion of Islamic Finance market was awarded a CBE for her services to the economy.
Cox is the managing director of DDCAP group and has held this position for 18 years. She has been a practitioner within the Islamic financial marketplace for 30 years.
She has previously been a member of HM Treasury’s Islamic finance experts group and is currently a member of the University of East London’s Islamic finance and banking advisory board.
Nigel Bliss, director of finance and operations for Liberal Democrats was awarded an MBE for his political and public service. Nigel was part of HQ and looked after finance, payroll, HR, compliance and HQ admin, he retired earlier this year. He was one of the ten Lib Dems honoured.
The biggest revelation was the eleven gongs awarded to members of HMRC mainly for services to tax.
Higher officer, Colin McMurtrie was given an MBE for the development of digital services, which has been a priority for HMRC recently, he is part of building digital capability.
Margaret Burns was recognised for her services to benefit recipients and to the community in Tyne and Wear and received an MBE. She is contact centre manager at Peterlee for HMRC.
Assistant officer for personal tax operations at HMRC, Hitesh Chandarana, was awarded an MBE for her services to tax compliance.
The big names that lead the honours list included singer Rod Stewart who received a knighthood and astronaut Tim Peake who was awarded a CMG. Ant and Dec both received OBEs for services in entertainment and singer Dame Vera Lynn became Companion of Honour.
For the Queen's Birthday Honours list click here.
