This Accountant - Tax role at Safaricom Kenya is responsible for managing all aspects of tax compliance, ensuring timely and accurate filing of tax returns (WHT, VAT, Corporate Tax), and participating in strategic tax planning efforts.
Key Accountabilities and Decision Ownership
Health and Safety
- Uphold the company code of conduct, policies and procedures, ensuring integrity and accountability in every aspect of your work.
- All employees have a responsibility to adhere to safety, health, and wellbeing policies, guidelines and procedures in all actions and decisions.
Tax Management and Compliance Duties
- Preparation of monthly withholding tax and withholding VAT returns together with supporting schedules to ensure filing by the statutory deadlines.
- Preparation of subsidiary corporate tax returns plus supporting schedules for tax filing and accounting reporting purposes.
- Preparation of quarterly instalment tax payments within statutory deadlines.
- Reconcile withholding tax and VAT receivable balances to issued certificates and the GL account and follow up for any outstanding tax certificates.
- Participate in tax planning efforts to assist the business identify areas of tax exposures as well as tax savings opportunities.
- Review of expenses for optimal claim of input VAT credits.
- Ensure import taxes paid by the company are accurately computed and requisite documents to support duty payments are kept.
- Liaise with the Revenue Authority, internal customers and external auditors to ensure tax-related queries and correspondence are addressed in a timely manner.
- Support the analysis and implementation of tax policy changes because of Finance Bill/Act and gazetted tax policy changes.
- Participate in the monthly Balance Sheet Review processes, including adequately preparing the supporting schedules.
- Participate in preparing tax training materials and presenting during this training session.
- Analysis of fixed assets additions for qualifying investment allowances.
- Support in the preparation of information required during statutory and regulatory audits.
Core Competencies, Knowledge and Experience
Business Competencies
- Working with Others: Consciously takes steps to make the most of every conversation/interaction; Identifies people's needs, interests and motives to be able to influence the decisions they make; Communicates simply to excite and engage people; Builds and maintains strong relationships and networks.
- Operational Excellence: Focuses on achieving maximum performance and driving continuous improvement; Thinks about processes and problems cross-functionally and end-to-end; Uses knowledge of products, technology, process, systems and policy to solve problems.
- Creativity and Innovation: Finds creative ways to exploit opportunities and solve problems; Takes risks and pushes what is possible; Experiments with unorthodox approaches.
- Business Know how: Uses data and research to make decisions that are competitively and financially robust; Balances current and future needs; Thinks and acts like an owner of the business; Acts in line with legal, regulatory, professional and ethical standards.
- Working with Change: Responds flexibly to changing situations; Manages the business and people aspects of change to drive performance.
Functional Competencies:
- Planning and Control: Analyses performance trends to determine the health of the business; Maintains controls within Financial Systems through setup control and master data management.
- Accounting: Prepares, analyses and summaries financial data to support business operations and delivery statutory information; Ensures the integrity of processes and systems to record and authorize transactions in compliance with Safaricom accounting policies and regulation.
- Reporting: Delivers timely and accurate reports to satisfy statutory and business requirements; Identifies key performance and variances, and provides recommendations.
- Tax: Delivers filings/reports to satisfy statutory and business requirements; Combines expertise and commercial awareness to deliver value added solutions.
Qualifications and Experience
- Honors degree from a recognized university in business or related field.
- At least one full professional qualification in accounting namely CPA, ACCA, CIMA or an equivalent.
- A minimum of 4 years proven track record of having worked in a similar role in the Tax field with a progressive accounting firm or a Law firm or with a minimum of 4 years tax and accounting experience in a well-run company.
Key Performance Indicators
- Timely filing of tax returns and payment of taxes.
- Collaborate with the Finance Shared Services team to deliver outputs in a timely and accurate manner.
- Structure transactions to avoid tax gross-up by reviewing contracts, tax legislation including double tax treaties.
- Organize quarterly relationship meetings with the stakeholders.
- Satisfactory stakeholder management.
- 100% compliance with tax laws, processes and procedures.
