Compliance and Reporting - Director

About CFGI:

Corporate Finance Group, Inc. (“CFGI”) was founded in 2000 by former Big 4 professionals. CFGI is an established industry leader with the resources to successfully navigate today’s complex accounting, reporting, compliance and tax landscape. An assemblage of top-flight professionals with in-depth public accounting expertise, CFGI can fulfill a variety of client needs without the restrictions of auditor independence. With a foundation of knowledge amassed while serving a variety of industries, CFGI is able to guide companies through a wide range of routine and complex business scenarios. The resulting partnership is an innovative resource with the power to address our clients’ most crucial accounting, finance and operational challenges.

We provide our clients with a unique combination of integrity, flexibility, creative solutions, and deep tax technical expertise. Many of our clients are global, market leading, publicly held companies, while others are privately held, early stage, or venture-backed emerging businesses. Here at CFGI, we place a high value on a culture of continued learning, where teamwork is encouraged, and professional excellence is rewarded.

In 2022, CFGI opened its London office (its first outside the US) and achieved fantastic revenue in the first full year of trading, primarily derived from the accounting advisory practice. In January 2023 the UK tax practice was formed and the UK tax partner is looking to quickly assemble a high-quality team of tax professionals to grow the tax business and provide clients with an exceptional and differentiated service.

Overview of role:

CFGI seeks a highly motivated tax director to join its UK tax team. This role will provide a fantastic opportunity for an individual who is driven, entrepreneurial and constantly looking to challenge the status quo around the UK tax services industry.

You will be involved in all aspects of UK corporate tax (advisory, compliance, reporting and governance) and will have direct interaction with both our clients and senior members of the UK tax team in order to deliver these services.

1. Client service delivery

a) Tax advisory

You will be involved in tax advisory work likely to include the following:

1. Ad hoc corporate tax advisory work originating from compliance engagements – e.g. loss planning and utilization, tax implications of trade and asset transfers, interest deductibility.
2. Cash tax modelling exercises.
3. Group simplification exercises.
4. Tax due diligence for client transactions.
5. Tax structuring for client transactions.

It is likely that a significant proportion of tax advisory work will arise on private equity backed clients and therefore an advanced understanding of the tax implications of the private equity ownership model and the investment lifecycle are highly desirable. You should have knowledge / experience of advising clients on some or all of the following:

1. Immediate post-acquisition tax actions, e.g. preparation of “post-acq tax checklist”, implementation of any structural actions, remediation of key tax DD items, withholding tax management, and coverage of non-corporate tax items such as VAT on transaction costs.
2. Refinancing, bolt-ons, group simplification and reorganization.
3. Tax compliance related advisory (e.g. interest deductibility, anti-hybrids, transaction costs).
4. Exit readiness (e.g. healthcheck reviews).
5. Exit support (vendor assist role: tax DD support and negotiation, exit structuring, transaction balance sheet).

b) UK corporation tax compliance, reporting and governance:

You will be responsible for overseeing the preparation and submission of UK corporation tax returns for our clients. In collaboration with the UK Tax Partner, you will assist with the design and implementation of a UK corporation tax compliance service offering, that is high quality, efficient and cost effective for our clients, and optimizes the involvement of junior team members to manage the provision of these services and lead the day-to-day relationships with our clients.

Your client engagements may also require you to have some involvement with tax reporting and governance matters.

2. Business development

As CFGI is looking to rapidly expand in the UK, there will be plenty of opportunity to get involved in business development activities. As a director, you will be expected to undertake business development activity to help grow the UK tax practice and the CFGI brand in the UK. Business development activities will include:

1. Assisting with the origination of tax opportunities on new and existing clients, drafting of proposals and involvement in the sales process (e.g. meetings, pitches, etc.).
2. Teaming with colleagues from other CFGI UK and US service areas (e.g. accounting advisory, business transformation) to identify and propose tax opportunities.
3. Teaming with the CFGI US tax team to support with and identify UK tax opportunities on US clients.
4. Identifying additional revenue streams with our clients.

Skills and Competencies:

Knowledge:

1. Significant experience of scoping, leading and managing UK tax advisory projects.
2. Experience of working on UK transactions and involvement in diligence and structuring (e.g. for buyside buyout or bolt-on).
3. Experience of the UK tax return preparation process, and good technical understanding with common tax adjusting items such as interest deductibility, hybrid mismatches, loss utilization etc.
4. Knowledge of UK tax accounting and reporting processes under IFRS and UK GAAP.
5. Experience of responding to and managing HMRC tax enquiries.
6. High level knowledge / an appreciation of the principles of non-corporate tax areas, such as VAT, payroll taxes and share schemes.
7. Knowledge / an appreciation of cross-border tax matters, e.g. transfer pricing, BEPS Pillar 2, country by country reporting etc.

Skills:

1. Experienced with using Microsoft Excel and tax software packages.
2. Demonstrated ability to effectively present information and appropriately respond to questions from clients and team members.
3. Excellent organizational skills, ability to multi-task, and work under deadlines.
4. Excellent analytical, supervisory, organizational, and written and verbal communication skills are necessary.
5. Demonstrated ability to be accountable for independently completing assignments.
6. Capable of collaborating and communicating with people of different technical backgrounds and roles.
7. Analytical ability to navigate work-related situations with practicality, sound reasoning, and demonstrating creativity in problem solving.
8. Other key characteristics: the ideal candidate must demonstrate integrity and accountability, always remaining flexible, adaptable, and willing to accept coaching, building and managing professionally healthy relationships, and continually developing awareness of business-related topics.

Qualifications:

1. Seven plus years plus of corporate tax experience with some/all of this time ideally spent in the Big 4.
2. Professional accounting qualification (e.g. ACA, ACCA) required; additional tax qualification (e.g. CTA) strongly desired.