Senior Tax Accountant

Essor; Manila; On-site; PHP 900,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Essor is seeking a Senior Tax Accountant to lead VAT and Sales Tax compliance, ensuring ERP integrity and accurate tax reporting. You will own end-to-end processes, perform technical tax research, and collaborate with finance teams to maintain audit-ready records.

The role emphasizes AI-driven workflows, data analysis, and continuous process improvements while supporting growth across Essor's health & wellness and lifestyle brands.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in accounting or related field.
• Strong understanding of VAT and sales tax concepts.
• Experience with ERP systems and tax workflows.

Responsibilities

• Own VAT and sales tax compliance processes end-to-end.
• Reconcile VAT and sales tax in ERP to general ledger.
• Collaborate with AP/AR/Finance IT to ensure accurate data for tax reporting.

Skills

VAT compliance

Tax reporting

ERP Netsuite

Financial analysis

Audit support

Education

Bachelor's degree in accounting

Tools

Netsuite ERP

Tax software

SQL

Job description

Job Description:

Essor, where brands take flight. We find digital challenger brands and supercharge them into iconic global legends that consumers love. As a next-generation consumer products platform, we leverage technology, industry expertise, and strategic collaborations to ignite growth and launch brands beyond expectations.

Essor’s brand portfolio today includes a broad range of rapidly growing health & wellness and lifestyle brands like Boka, ZitSticka, Puracy, OTOTO Design, FreshCap, Iron Flask, Fullstar, NumNum, Key Nutrients, and Viking Revolution that are sold on Amazon, Direct to Consumer channels, and through national retailers like Target, CVS, and Walmart.

At Essor, we are at the forefront of leveraging AI, automation, and emerging technologies to challenge traditional ways of working. We are empowered to engage technology-driven initiatives. We want individuals who are hands-on, curious, and excited to be part of this journey. We expect Essorians to actively leverage AI, data, and automation to drive impact in their daily work. This includes, but is not limited to, the use of AI coding agents to automate tasks (e.g., Copilot, Antigravity), development of automated or agentic workflows (e.g., N8N, Dify), and engagement with data analysis tools (including SQL where relevant). While mastery is not required at the outset, rapid learning, technical fluency, and continuous upskilling are core expectations. The company will support your growth through guidance and coaching, and you are expected to actively develop and apply your skills as part of your role.

About The Role

The Senior Tax Accountant plays a critical role in managing the company's VAT and Sales Tax compliance cycles, ensuring the integrity of tax-related balance sheet accounts, and driving continuous process improvements. The STA possesses a deep understanding of accounting principles, demonstrates strong critical thinking, and takes full ownership of their responsibilities, providing clear explanations for all tax adjustments, especially those impacting the Profit & Loss (P&L) statement.

What You'll Do

Tax Compliance & Reporting

• VAT Compliance: Full ownership of the VAT compliance cycle, including the preparation of in-house returns and the review of those managed by service providers. Responsibility includes ensuring the accurate submission and timely payment of all VAT liabilities across relevant jurisdictions.
• VAT Reconciliation & ERP Integrity: Ensure that Netsuite accurately reflects current VAT assets and liabilities. This includes comprehensively reconciling all VAT returns filed back to the ERP general ledger accounts.
• Sales Tax Compliance: Manage the end-to-end sales tax compliance cycle with our outsourced platform TaxWire. Ensuring accurate calculations, timely filing, and payment of all sales tax returns.
• Sales Tax Reconciliation & ERP Integrity: Ensure Netsuite accurately reflects current sales tax assets and liabilities, and reconcile all filed returns back to the ERP general ledger accounts.
• Technical Tax Research & Interpretation: The ability to independently research, interpret, and apply relevant VAT/GST and Sales Tax legislation to new business transactions or changes in tax rules.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Effectively collaborate with other departments (e.g., Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Finance IT) to ensure that transactional data necessary for accurate tax reporting is correctly captured and classified within the ERP system.

Risk Management

• Registration Management: Make recommendations where new registrations are required or pre-existing registrations appear to be redundant in order to maintain compliance balanced with maximizing team efficiency.
• Notice Management: Review incoming mail, log important notices in the team’s notice tracker (e.g. penalties, certificates), distribute to respective advisors where necessary and ensure the tracker is updated when a notice is resolved.
• Registration details: Ensure that all active registrations reflect the correct entity, address & contact details where applicable.
• Audit : Mitigate tax risks by maintaining audit-ready records and documentation. This includes ensuring full data integrity for both in-house processes and those managed alongside external service providers.
• Proactively monitor and track all VAT/Sales Tax related matters, ensuring consistent follow-up to mitigate compliance risks and prevent potential penalties or interest charges

Financial Stewardship & Analysis

• Balance Sheet Ownership: Take complete ownership of the VAT balance sheet accounts. This includes performing reconciliations to Netsuite for each return filed at the time of filing, investigating all unusual or aging entries, and providing detailed explanations for the movements and outstanding balances.
• Critical Adjustment Analysis: Prepare and clearly explain all proposed tax adjustments, particularly those impacting the P&L (e.g., non-deductible VAT, variances between marketplace reports vs returns filed). Demonstrate critical thinking by investigating differences and unusual entries rather than merely replicating prior period processes.
• Audit Support: Support the Senior Tax Manager in gathering documentation and supporting information for external VAT/Sales Tax audits and the Group level consolidated audit.

Process & Documentation

• Process Improvement: Proactively identify and propose process improvements within the tax function to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and control over tax compliance activities.
• SOP Management: Maintain detailed and up-to-date Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all VAT and Sales Tax compliance and reconciliation activities, ensuring documentation is updated immediately following any process or regulatory change.

Who You Are:

• Accounting Acumen: Possess a clear and comprehensive understanding of fundamental accounting principles and the underlying general ledger book entries that generate tax figures.
• Critical Thinking: Demonstrate a proactive, critical approach to all tasks. The Senior Tax Accountant must not simply copy prior period work but must actively investigate unusual entries, variances, and numerical differences to ensure accuracy and compliance.
• Ownership: Take full end-to‑end ownership of the balance sheet accounts. This includes the ability to explain, justify, and defend all proposed adjustments and balances to management and auditors.
• P&L Impact: The ability to clearly articulate and justify adjustments that impact the Profit & Loss statement, demonstrating an understanding of the relationship between tax adjustments and financial performance.
• Investigative Skills: The propensity to look behind the numbers, investigate potential errors or unusual transactions within the ERP, and propose corrective actions.

Selection Process:

We want to get to know your technical expertise, your strategic mindset, and how you approach problem-solving. Here is what you can expect during the interview process:

Step 1: Initial Screening

• A conversational interview with our Talent Acquisition/HR team. We will focus on understanding your core experience, your alignment with the role’s requirements, your aptitude for AI and emerging tech, and your overall cultural fit at Essor.

Step 2: Case Study Assessment

• A practical, take-home exercise designed to give you an opportunity to showcase your strategy, technical capabilities, and problem-solving skills in a real-world scenario.

Step 3: Deep Dive & Case Review

• You will meet first with the Hiring Manager, followed by the Head of Department. During these sessions, we will review your case study presentation, evaluate your blend of hard and soft skills, and discuss how you would collaborate with the wider team.

Step 4: Final Leadership Interview

• A final conversation with members of our leadership team to align on high-level strategy, business impact, and long‑term vision.

Digital Fluency & AI Integration

At Essor, technical fluency is a prerequisite for excellence. We look for individuals who are excited to pioneer new ways of working by leveraging LLMs, automated workflows, and data analysis tools.

Whether it’s deploying AI coding agents (Copilot, Antigravity) to ship faster, building agentic workflows in N8N or Dify, or querying data via SQL to drive objective decisions, you should be a practitioner of the "automated-first" mindset. While we don't expect Day 1 mastery, we do require a relentless "learn-and-apply" loop. We are committed to your growth through active mentorship and internal upskilling, expecting in return a commitment to continuous experimentation and the proactive application of AI to solve complex business problems.

Own your impact. Join us.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, age, or national origin will be considered. No qualified applicants will be discriminated against on the basis of disability or protected veteran status.

Requirements: