Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and develop the Indirect Taxes compliance and advisory function across Europe and the US.
• Proactively advise the business on all indirect tax issues and commercial opportunities, liaising with external advisors where necessary.
• Engage with senior stakeholders across the business to understand and communicate the commercial impact of any changes in indirect tax legislation.
• Support new systems implementation to assess the impact from an indirect tax perspective and ensure systems are compliant with current indirect tax requirements and enabled for future requirements such as real-time reporting.
• Develop a culture of continuous improvement to bring efficiencies to processes and technology, improve ways of working and enhance controls.
• Liaise with relevant Tax Authorities where necessary and build on good working relationships established by Primark.
• Support with any tax audits across all jurisdictions.
• Influence key stakeholders across the business to ensure processes and technology are compliant with regulations.
• Advise on optimum structures for new country/depot set-up to ensure both tax efficient and minimal compliance burden for the team.
• Lead the response to changes in legislation and practice and keeping relevant business partners and management updated on same.
• Work closely with Primark’s Head of Government Affairs to represent Primark on indirect tax forums, where appropriate, to drive changes in legislation and guidance.
• Provide VAT technical and practical training and advice to the team and the wider finance and business functions.
• Support wider tax team initiatives which may have relevance to indirect taxes.
• Lead on any indirect tax planning involving the Primark Group including identification of opportunities, developing, recommending & managing the implementation of selected projects.
• Collaborate with Procurement and Legal to review and advise on the structuring of property and other agreements from a VAT perspective.
• Work closely with the FP&A teams on expected changes to VAT legislation that would impact on budgeting and forecasting and estimating the impact of same.

Essential knowledge, skills and experience:

• Accounting qualification desirable (ACCA, ACA, CPA or equivalent).
• Tax qualification (AITI).
• 5+ years relevant PQE (preferably in a retail environment).
• Strong communication skills (written and verbal) - need to communicate to all levels within the business.
• Strong planning and organisation skills, ability to plan and prioritise work schedule and work within agreed timescales.
• Commercial awareness with ability to demonstrate a sound knowledge of wider business factors.
• Have strong financial and analytical acumen as well as excellent Project Management and communication skills.
• European language skills an advantage.
• Demonstrate initiative with strong work ethic.
• Self-motivated, proactive, ability to ensure tasks are finalised to strict deadlines.

Computer Skills:

• MS Office including Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Oracle experience an advantage