Senior Manager - Direct Tax

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About the role

The Senior Manager – Direct Tax plays a critical role in safeguarding the company’s financial health. By balancing compliance with strategic planning, they help avoid penalties, reduce unnecessary tax burdens, and support sustainable growth. This role also needs to ensure consistency across multiple jurisdictions.

This is a brand new role, reporting into our new Group Tax Director, with the objective to bring direct tax returns in-house, reducing external spend, but also bringing direct tax expertise and strategy into the central tax team.

This role oversees and optimizes the Group’s direct tax obligations, ensuring compliance with tax laws while strategically managing tax efficiency. Splitting this down further:

Compliance Management: Ensures the Group meets all direct tax obligations (corporate income tax, capital gains tax, withholding tax, etc.) by preparing and reviewing accurate tax returns.
Strategic Tax Planning: Works with the Group Tax Director to develop and implement tax strategies to minimize liabilities and optimize the Group’s tax position.
Advisory Function: Provides guidance to senior stakeholders on tax implications of business decisions, mergers, acquisitions, or restructuring.
Audit & Risk Oversight: Manages direct tax audits, assists re liaison with tax authorities, and mitigates risks related to direct tax exposure.
Collaboration: Works closely with finance teams and external consultants to align tax practices with broader business goals.
Reporting & Policy Development: Supports the Group Tax Director in shaping tax policies and ensuring accurate reporting across the organization. Including SAO (Senior Accounting Officer) and CCO (Corporate Criminal Offence) controls and tax risk reviews.
Transfer Pricing: Develop, implement, and maintain transfer pricing policies consistent with OECD guidelines and local regulations.
Tax Technology, Automation & Transformation: The Senior Manager Direct Tax will play a pivotal role in modernising the Group’s tax operations. This includes leading tax process automation, improving data flows, and implementing technology and AI-enabled solutions to enhance accuracy, efficiency and control.

In this role your key responsibilities will be to:

Research and interpret evolving tax laws and regulations, across multiple countries. Able to interpret complex legislation and become a master of local, national and international direct tax regulations.
Ensures compliance with evolving global tax frameworks (e.g. BEPS (Base Erosion Profits Shifting), DAC6, OECD, etc).
Prepare and review corporate tax filings, across multiple countries, and directing external advisors where returns are prepared on our behalf.
Ensures compliance of and timely filing of all direct tax returns.
Prepares year end tax disclosures for all statutory accounts, including associate tax accounting entries.
Leading RDEC (Research and Development Expenditure Credit reclaim) process and preparation and posting of RDEC Journals.
Manages any cash tax payments.
Produces cash tax forecasts for the Group.
Lead responses to tax authority inquiries and audits.
Advise on tax-efficient structures for investments and transactions.
Oversee the design, implementation, and compliance of global transfer pricing policies.
Develop, implement, and maintain transfer pricing policies consistent with OECD guidelines and local regulations.
Prepare and review transfer pricing documentation, including Master File, Local File, and Country-by-Country Reporting.
Identify and mitigate transfer pricing risks through proactive monitoring of global tax developments.
Provide guidance on intercompany agreements, cross-border transactions, and restructuring projects.
Monitor legislative changes and assess their impact on the business.
Identify and implement digital tools, automation solutions and process improvements across the direct tax lifecycle.
Enhance data quality, standardisation and integration between finance systems and tax reporting tools.
Explore the use of AI and advanced analytics to streamline tax compliance, tax forecasting and tax risk detection.
Act as a key contributor to the Group’s tax transformation roadmap, ensuring the tax function remains future-ready and aligned with global digital tax administration trends.
Train the wider finance team in order to build internal expertise.

Skills & experience

Essential Skills/behaviours:

Analytical & Detail-Oriented
Ability to interpret complex tax legislation and apply it accurately.
Precision in preparing and reviewing tax returns, ensuring compliance and minimizing risk.
Integrity & Ethical Conduct
Upholds transparency and honesty when dealing with tax authorities and internal stakeholders.
Ensures decisions align with both legal requirements and corporate governance standards.
Works closely with finance, legal, and business teams to provide clear tax guidance.
Communicates complex tax issues in a way that non-specialists can understand.
Strategic Thinking & Commercial Awareness
Aligns tax strategies with broader business objectives.
Anticipates the impact of legislative changes on company operations.
Leadership & People Development
Provides mentorship and ensures team members understand compliance requirements.
Handles tax audits and regulatory challenges calmly and effectively.
Adapts quickly to evolving tax laws and changing business structures.

Critical competencies:

Adapts quickly to evolving tax laws and changing business structures.

Special circumstances / Other requirements e.g. travel requirements, working arrangements etc

Essential Qualifications

Professional Accounting/Tax Qualification

Chartered Accountant (ACA, ACCA) or Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA) or similar

University Degree (Preferred)

Degrees in accounting, finance, economics, or similar

Continuous Professional Development

Ongoing training in tax legislation, compliance, and international frameworks (e.g., OECD BEPS).
Post-Qualification Experience

Typically 5–7 years of corporate tax experience, either in a Big Four/accounting firm or in-house within a multinational.
Hands-on experience with corporate income tax and withholding tax.
Proven track record in preparing and reviewing tax returns, managing audits, and liaising with HMRC or other tax authorities.
Experience advising on mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, and cross-border tax issues.

Benefits & culture

At Zellis we create market-leading HR & Payroll products and services, to power exceptional employee experiences so that you and your people do better. Our multi-award-winning products pay over five million employees a year, with almost half (42%) of the FTSE 100, 50% of the top retailers and 30% of the top universities in the UK & Ireland as customers, making us the largest provider of Payroll and HR software and managed services.

Our vision is to be the clear leader in pay, reward, analytics, and people experiences. We're passionate about creating an environment where people want to join, belong to, and be part of a progressive organisation. Our values, which were defined with input from all of our 2,000 colleagues, we live and breathe every day:

Unstoppable together.
Always learning.
Make it count.
Think scale.

Our people are critical to our ongoing success; we’re proud of our inclusive culture that gives you the platform to grow, challenge the status quo and play a crucial role in further enhancing our market position as the leading provider of HR & Payroll software and services. With Zellis you’ll have the chance to stretch and challenge yourself in an environment that’s varied, flexible and hugely supportive.

We also love to reward and recognise our brilliant colleagues. As part of your benefits package, you’ll receive:

A competitive salary.
Excellent career progression opportunities.
Transportation to the office (up to 30kms).
Casual, privilege and sick leave, plus your birthday off.
Group medical insurance.
Personal accident insurance.
Life assurance.
A range of additional flexible benefits to support personal wellbeing.

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