Senior Tax Analyst - SUT

Job Details

• Works during US business hours
• Has a US Visa for traveling 2-3 times annually
• Prepare, review, and file multi-jurisdictional sales/use, business and occupation, and gross receipts tax returns for monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual filings
• Manages assignments for pre-cycle & off-cycle work:  customer outreach for common issues (frequency; credentials); bulk account administration; special projects; filing calendar change management
• Manage assignments for critical Prepayment administration (if necessary)
• Serve as trusted resource for critical troubleshooting & questions needed to reduce risk in-cycle
• Ability to research and resolve jurisdictional notices on behalf of customers
• Communicate regularly and effectively with customers, jurisdictions and other internal teams as part of research and resolution
• Expert knowledge of jurisdictions website & taxpayer experience when manually imputing filing information (data input nuances; limitations)
• Reviews statutory bulletins for proactive change management monitoring and other critical news
• Serves as trusted resource if/when at Statutory Readiness & Review project is conducted (attend meetings; provide context)
• Maintains relationships with Avalara Government Relationship team & key jurisdiction resources (where appropriate)
• Perform QA related to sales and use tax content and form changes
• Identify ways to improve process and/or technology to better serve our customers.
• Work collaboratively with all staff members and management
• Effectively coordinate, lead, and facilitate meetings, action items and follow-up with cross-functional teams and subject matter experts surrounding jurisdictional changes and internal managed incidents that impact the returns operations business.
• Strategically partner with cross-functional teams, including Global Compliance, Government Relations, Product, Engineering, Content, Finance, and Sales to drive project execution, foster understanding and collaboration.
• Disperse project summaries and updates to large distribution groups via email and wiki.
• Attend weekly legislative monitoring meetings and disseminate comprehensive notes to the full group.
• Some travel may be required

Key Competencies

Communication and Documentation:

• Communicate regularly and effectively with various internal teams as part of research and resolution.
• Confidently manage state partnerships and be able to lead, conduct and contribute to live meetings with jurisdictions as a representative of Avalara. 
• Display advanced coordination skills, effectively supporting team members across different projects.
• Disperse project summaries and updates via email, wiki and newsletter using proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. All communication should be clear, concise, and accurate. 
• Communication should be adapted and tailored to suit various stakeholders and evolving circumstances

Facilitation:

• Regularly interact with senior management and leaders across the organization to facilitate discussions and decision-making surrounding laws and regulations that impact the organization. 
• As a meeting facilitator, you will prepare an agenda, manage the discussion and ensure it does not deviate from its primary objective, provide real time feedback to stakeholders to clarify points.
• After the discussion, you will prepare detailed reports that restate the problem statement, the outcome of the discussion, proposed solutions, participant feedback, potential challenges, and action items. 

Relationship Building:

• Cultivate a broad network of relationships with internal and external stakeholders whose support is needed to carry out initiatives
• Build productive working relationships with state, county, and city authorities to maximize the quality of our product

Qualifications

• Experience working directly with the United States State or private Tax Departments to:
• Serve as Power of Attorney on behalf of taxpayers
• Review and resolve jurisdictional notices on behalf of taxpayers
• Review analysis of independently conducted research of a taxpayers indirect sales tax filings
• Advocate as a tax technical stakeholder for solutions that improve a taxpayer’s ability to file returns at scale, timely and accurately
• Experience attending United States Sales Tax conferences and tradeshows
• 2-3 years’ experience working during United States business hours
• Transactional Tax Expertise, with emphasis around transactional tax complexities from a jurisdiction administration standpoint including:
• Standard reporting requirements across states
• Notice generating activities 
• Red Flags for Audits 
• Communication strategies 
• Employment history working with a Big 4 Accounting Firm or large corporate tax department of a multinational company
• Excellent written and verbal interpersonal communication skills, with demonstrated success building relationships with United States Tax Department stakeholders (Collections, Customer Support, Audit, Legal)
• Minimum of 8 years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree; or minimum 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with minimum 3 years’ experience; or equivalent experience

Preferred Skills

• Expert understanding of an Avalara customer’s data flow
• Deep understanding of user platform features related to jurisdiction (nexus; exemptions; marketplace; rules; filing calendars; reporting; transactions)
• Reviews internal product enhancement requests related to jurisdiction (forms, automation, user interface, platform functions) & collaborates with Product Management team when help needed to define requirements
• Basic overall knowledge and understanding of transaction flow across the business and subsequent impacts to returns preparation and filing (advanced knowledge is a plus) 
• Content
• Transaction Tax Calculation 
• Transaction Data Flow 
• Returns Mapping
• Returns Filing Automation