Principal Accountant-Tax at Safaricom Kenya

Responsibilities

• 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 advisory and compliance

Key accountabilities and decision ownership

• Proactively support and partner with business across the Safaricom Group entities within the wider Group Tax function to create sustainable value for the Group.
• Tax policy - Tracking changes in tax legislation and advising the business on the impacted products and business areas.
• Follow-through and tax changes implementation across the various systems in the business.
• Tax training for business units and stakeholders through staff caravans and supplier forums.
• Support tax audits, disputes and tax litigation within the Group.
• Stakeholder management – Help to liaise with outside advisors (including auditors, legal, revenue authority and other advisors) to ensure proper and efficient tax planning, business partnering and solutions.
• Support the analysis of tax policy changes because of Finance Bill/Act and gazetted tax policy changes and advice on the implication for the Group.
• Monitor and communicate legislative changes and practice to the wider tax team and business as appropriate.
• Proactively review of contracts, products, and promotions to mitigate tax exposures to the business.
• Safaricom Group tax return processing and settlement of tax obligations – ensure that these processes are undertaken within the stipulated timelines.

Transfer pricing

Assist with the adherence to transfer pricing policies and procedures and ensure compliance with local transfer pricing regulations to include:

• Updating and maintaining transfer pricing policy.
• Updating the master and locale files documentation in collaboration with external advisors.
• Managing transfer pricing models and documentation.
• Managing local transfer pricing arrangements and documentation in collaboration with external advisors.
• Transfer pricing related audits.
• Provide transfer pricing advisory and guidance to the business for key projects.

Tax Reporting

• Ensure that adequate preparations are made for the annual statutory audit & Tax compliance checks.
• Safaricom Group monthly, half and full year tax computation preparation in line with the Group annual reporting schedule.
• Prepare monthly/annual tax schedules for financial reporting purposes.
• Tax planning and forecasting reports – Preparation of monthly, quarterly and annual reports, including a variance analysis report in line with the Group reporting calendar.
• Participate in the monthly Balance Sheet Review processes, including adequately preparing the supporting schedules.
• Internal tax controls and process automation – Maintaining the tax controls, undertaking self-reviews and ensuring adherence to the documented processes, procedures and controls.

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. 
• Pro-actively adapts own style and approach to build rapport, and work with others more effectively.
• Builds and maintains strong relationships and networks.

Operational Excellence

• Targets effort and resources on high-value, high impact activity.   
• 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

• High degree of commercial acumen. 
• 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.
• Understands how to influence or negotiate with others, in order to achieve productive outcomes.

Project and Programmed Management

• Fully understand the policies, processes and systems which apply to your work. 
• Schedules activity and identifies resource needs, dependencies and synergies.   
• Evaluates progress, mitigates risks and addresses issues.

Functional Competencies

Planning and Control

• Analyses performance trends to determine the health of the business.
• Steers business performance by using strategy and external data to help set goals.  
• Translates strategies into actionable plans that add value via process and operational improvements.
• Maintains controls within Financial Systems through setup control and master data management.

Accounting

• Prepares, analyses and summarises financial data to support business operations and delivery statutory information. 
• Ensures the integrity of processes and systems to record and authorise 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.

Treasury

• Develops and advises on forecast tax payments.

Tax

• Demonstrates and displays knowledge and expertise in the Tax discipline, through tax planning and advisory skills, tax compliance skills and tax governance skills, and in particular. 
• Delivers filings/reports to satisfy statutory and business requirements  Combines expertise and commercial awareness to deliver value added solutions.

Qualifications

• An Undergraduate Degree in Business, Law or similar qualification.
• CPA (K) qualified.
• A minimum of 8 years proven track record of having worked in a similar role in the Tax field with a progressive accounting firm or a Law firm with significant relevant post qualification experience in Transfer Pricing.
• Experience in staff supervision ensuring quality of work produced.
• Good accounting practices.