Irs Chief To Resign After Filing Season

Internal Revenue Service chief Margaret Milner Richardson plans to resign at the end of this year’s tax-filing season, the IRS announced Wednesday.

In a letter released Wednesday, Richardson, 53, told Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin she believes “that this is an appropriate time for me to pursue other career opportunities and allow the selection of a successor who could serve during (President Clinton’s) full second term.”

Richardson’s tenure, which began in May 1993, has been a turbulent period for the tax agency.

It has continued to struggle, as it has for more than a decade, to upgrade its computer and data-processing systems.

At the same time, Congress, under pressure to balance the budget and increasingly impatient with the agency’s modernization efforts, has been sharply critical of the IRS and this year reduced its budget.

But Richardson denied in an interview that she had been pressured to leave.

Richardson said she hasn’t decided on her own future.

“It’s a nice time to think about a whole array of options,” she said.