Client Investment Tax Lead | Western Cape & Gauteng - Pretoria

Location: Claremont | Pretoria | Sandton

A leading financial services firm is seeking a highly analytical and detail-oriented Client Investment Tax Lead to drive data integrity, tax reporting accuracy, and compliance across multiple investment platforms. This role plays a key part in designing and executing data quality controls and ensuring timely and accurate tax submissions across both in-house and outsourced platforms.

Key Responsibilities:

Client and Product Tax Oversight:

• Support the Operations and Tax teams in ensuring accurate client tax reporting, including IT3 reporting, withholding tax, PAYE, and life company five-fund tax.
• Develop and execute comprehensive test plans for tax reports such as:
• IT3(b), IT3(c)
• IRP5 and IT3(a) (payroll-related)
• Conduct continuous monitoring of data for quality issues, escalating and driving remediation within operational teams.
• Review business rules, forms, and system inputs to ensure alignment with tax reporting requirements.
• Oversee and test PAYE calculations and payroll submissions for Living Annuity income.
• Validate SARS directive deductions and ensure proper payroll reporting.
• Review and test:
• Capital gains/losses calculations
• Complex corporate actions
• False disposal cases (e.g., fund class switches, transfers)
• Fund income distributions and dividends

Endowment and Sinking Fund Tax Reviews:

• Oversee tax deduction calculations for share portfolios (PSPs) in endowment structures.
• Review and test capital gains tax calculations and end-of-year adjustments.
• Assist in testing system changes impacting client and five-fund tax.

Offshore Platform Tax Compliance (PWP):

• Manage IRS Qualified Intermediary (QI) compliance including:
• 1042, 1042-S, and 1099 filings
• Withholding tax testing and validation
• Data collation and submissions (in collaboration with Guernsey)

FATCA & CRS Compliance:

• Develop and implement a FATCA/CRS data testing programme.
• Identify and remediate data issues with operations teams.
• Submit accurate FATCA/CRS reports to SARS and Guernsey (via IGOR system).

Requirements:

Qualifications:

• BCom Accounting or equivalent.
• HDip Tax or Postgraduate Tax qualification.

Experience & Competencies:

• Solid understanding of financial products, including:
• LISP products: discretionary investments, RAs, living annuities, preservation funds, TFSA, endowment policies
• Financial instruments: unit trusts, ETFs, direct shares
• Strong knowledge of tax regulations and accounting principles
• Experience in tax reporting (IT3, PAYE, FATCA, CRS, IRS QI)
• Proficient in data analysis and testing:
• SQL and advanced Excel
• Able to design test scenarios, identify anomalies, and resolve data issues
• Experience with outsourced platforms (e.g., Peresec) and international filings is a plus

Personal Attributes:

• Highly analytical and numerate
• Structured and logical thinker
• Proactive and self-motivated with a strong sense of ownership
• Comfortable working across tax, operations, and technology teams