Group Regional Tax Manager : Europe

Aspen Pharma Group; Gauteng; On-site; ZAR 800,000 - 1,000,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading pharmaceutical company is seeking a Group Tax Manager to oversee tax operations across the Europe region. The role requires ensuring compliance with tax laws, managing relationships with tax authorities, and leading a team to drive efficiencies in tax processes. Ideal candidates will have significant experience in tax management and a relevant degree in Finance or Taxation.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in tax management at a senior level.
• Strong understanding of tax laws and compliance requirements.
• Experience managing teams and leading projects.

Responsibilities

• Oversee compliance with all tax laws in the Europe region.
• Manage relationships with tax authorities.
• Support tax technology projects and improvements.

Skills

Tax compliance

Tax reporting

Stakeholder management

Risk assessment

Coaching and mentoring

Education

Relevant degree in Finance or Taxation

Job description

We are seeking an experienced and results-driven Group Tax Manager to oversee all tax operations across the Europe region. As a strategic and hands-on leader, you will ensure compliance with all regional tax laws, manage tax risks, and drive efficiencies in tax processes.

Key Performance Areas

• Oversee compliance across all tax types, tax accounting and tax reporting in the region.
• Transition routine work to the Technology Enabled Shared Services (TESS) and provide support on any tax related projects and process improvement initiatives.
• Ensure timely compliance of tax return submissions across all tax types within the region.
• Maintain robust documentation for compliance and audit purposes, in alignment with Group Tax document retention policy.
• Manage relationship with tax authorities within the region
• Develop and maintain strong working relationships with internal stakeholders by managing expectations, advising on operational tax risks, and proactively proposing tax risk mitigation strategies.
• Support tax technology projects that will be rolled out within the region.
• Review and thereafter ensure that corporate tax liabilities for your region are accurately recorded, within the deadlines reflected in the Group Finance timetable, by actively managing your respective team members to achieve these deadlines.
• Review and thereafter ensure that the TRCS submissions for your region are made on time, as reflected in the Group Finance timetable, and is reviewed by the Tax Specialist within forty-eight hours of the submission deadline with feedback in this regard being sent to management.
• Review all manual adjustments made by the Group Tax Specialist (“GTS”) and understand why this has taken place and recommend changes to any tax rules to the Tax Technology team, if these adjustments will be made on a permanent basis. Ensure a note is prepared for each significant manual adjustment and that these notes are approved by the Group Head : Tax Operations within forty-eight hours of the note being prepared and before the Group’s ETR is finalized, as reflected in the Group Finance timetable.
• Ensure that all changes in accounting standards are fully considered from a tax perspective, for your region, and make recommendations to the technology team of additional rules that must be created.
• Assess tax positions taken by your region and provide input into the Group’s IFRIC23 register.
• Prepare position papers where required to support material and usual tax adjustments on corporate tax calculations for purpose of tax provisions and tax return submissions.
• Review reconciliations performed by GTS for Corporate Income Tax and VAT / GST
• Review the annual financial statements for all companies in your region, before they are signed off by management and the auditors to ensure that there is no ambiguity relating to transactions that have been entered into, which could give rise to queries by the tax authorities, and that the tax notes and related parties notes are aligned to Group Tax expectations. This work should be performed in accordance with the Group Finance timetable that is prepared in relation to annual financial statements that are issued by that team.
• Work with the auditors that are appointed to conclude the annual external audit for companies the entities in your region, to ensure that a report is issued by 23 July (or the nearest Friday to this date) confirming that no tax issues are noted from their review of the tax calculation.
• Review and thereafter ensure that the segmented income statement is received from every entity in your region, monthly, is prepared / first reviewed by your team and uploaded to TRCS within forty-eight hours of the date stipulated in the Group Finance timetable monthly transfer pricing session.
• Review the recharge calculations that are performed by the GTS.
• Ensure each entity in your region meets all their tax reporting obligations by actively managing your respective team members to achieve these deadlines – no return should be submitted without it being prepared by the GTS or our advisors and reviewed by yourself. This responsibility covers corporate tax (domestic and international tax), and value-added tax.
• Risk assess positions taken in the tax returns that are being submitted and ensure that those risks are fully understood and if significant, brought immediately to the Group Head : Tax Operations’ attention so that a decision can be made as to whether the proposed position should be taken in the returns.
• Ensure that the right amount of tax is paid by the companies in your region to limit the Group’s exposure to tax refunds and actively manage the recovery of any amount that is due to the Group by any tax authority.
• Review VAT returns for your region
• for your region and that these are reviewed by yourself.
• Ensure that your respective team member prepares the controlled foreign entity tax return for each entity in your region. In addition, the CFC return must be reviewed by yourself.
• Ensure that every routine response to any Tax Authority is reviewed by yourself and risk assessed prior to the response being submitted to the Tax Authority.
• Assess how changes in tax law could impact on the entities in the region and share this information with the business unit.
• Implement value-adding initiatives arising from changes in tax law.
• Review all intercompany legal agreements that are entered into by companies’ entities in the region to ensure tax provisions are appropriately included, that the right party is entering into the agreement and that the structure of the agreements optimizes the taxes arising under the agreement.
• Review all board resolutions entered into by companies’ entities in the region to ensure they meet tax reporting requirements and do not give rise to tax risk.
• Implement a process to have regular cadence sessions with each team member during which work allocation and performance against KPIs are discussed.
• Actively coaching and mentoring direct reports and the broader staff, providing feedback, and developing and growing employees to develop their technical and soft skills.
• Work Group Head : Tax Operations to undertake performance reviews of the Group Tax Specialists (GTS) and identify areas of growth and development for inclusion in each individual’s KPIs.
• Assist the Group Head : Tax Operations in benchmarking the performance of the professional staff and identifying candidates to become future leaders
• Coaching and mentoring your team so that their performance is optimally developed.
• Embed a culture of collaboration across functions and business units within your region.
• Day-to-day management of the relationship with the external tax advisors including management of their cost against approved budgets to ensure there are no cost overruns.
• Assist with drafting and updating reports required for various tax committee meetings.
• Ensure that every entity in the region is applying the tax policies that are issued by Group Tax and that your GTS’ are implementing the standard operating procedures.
• Review the quarterly reports that are submitted by the CEO of each Group entity that you are responsible for to ensure tax risk is appropriately managed in country.
• Ensure that the GTS are updating the Global Tax Compliance tracker after each return submission
• Stay abreast of tax changes and understand / model the impact to the business and region as well as communicate any required actions to meet any concomitant tax obligations on a proactive basis with all relevant stakeholders and business units
• Manage and respond to internal audit queries in collaboration with the Group Reporting and Compliance Specialist and Head of Tax Operations