Tax Manager - Taxation & Strategic Advisory

RASGCO · Karachi, Karachi District; Sindh, Pakistan

Tax Manager – Taxation & Strategic Advisory

Department: Taxation and Strategic Advisory

Reports to: Partner

Employment Type: Full-Time

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced Tax Manager to lead complex tax engagements and help clients make informed strategic decisions in an evolving regulatory and commercial environment.The role combines technical tax expertise with commercial insight. You will advise clients on the tax implications of investments, business models, restructuring, and cross-border transactions—evaluating alternatives, explaining trade-offs, and translating technical analysis into practical recommendations.A central challenge will be to provide clear, defensible advice where legislation is complex, interpretations differ, information is incomplete, and business decisions are time-sensitive. You will balance clients’ commercial objectives with compliance obligations, financial exposure, implementation constraints, and reputational considerations.Alongside strategic advisory, you will oversee compliance and dispute engagements, develop teams, strengthen client relationships, and contribute to the growth of the firm’s practice.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Advisory and Business Decision Support

• Lead tax advisory engagements relating to business expansion, investments, restructuring, financing arrangements, and other significant corporate transactions.
• Develop a clear understanding of each client’s business model, industry, ownership structure, and strategic priorities to ensure advice addresses the underlying business decision.
• Evaluate alternative transaction structures and courses of action, assessing their tax implications, cash-flow effects, compliance requirements, implementation feasibility, and potential dispute exposure.
• Translate complex technical findings into clear recommendations, setting out available options, key assumptions, uncertainties, and commercial trade-offs.
• Prepare and present tax opinions, decision papers, reports, and presentations for senior management and other relevant stakeholders.
• Support the implementation of agreed recommendations, coordinating with clients’ finance, legal, and operational teams and other professional advisers.
• Identify opportunities for proactive advisory support through reviews of clients’ existing arrangements, emerging risks, and planned business activities.

Regulatory Interpretation and Tax Risk

• Assess complex issues across Pakistan’s federal and provincial direct and indirect tax framework, including matters involving overlapping requirements or differing interpretations.
• Monitor legislative changes, judicial developments, and tax authority practices, and explain their implications for clients’ current operations and future plans.
• Apply sound professional judgment where the legal position is uncertain, documenting the basis of advice, alternative interpretations, and matters requiring specialist input or Partner consultation.
• Help clients develop practical tax risk-management processes, strengthen documentation, and prepare for scrutiny by tax authorities.
• Escalate significant technical, commercial, ethical, and reputational risks promptly, with a clear assessment and recommended response.

Engagement Delivery, Compliance and Disputes

• Manage engagements from scoping and planning through delivery, ensuring technical quality, appropriate resourcing, timely completion, and effective communication.
• Oversee and review income tax, sales tax, withholding tax, federal excise tax, and other applicable returns, computations, reconciliations, and statutory filings.
• Lead assessments, audits, notices, appeals, and dispute matters, including the preparation and review of submissions and representations before relevant authorities and forums.
• Develop dispute strategies in consultation with the Partner, considering the technical merits, quality of evidence, financial exposure, procedural requirements, and commercial consequences.
• Ensure working papers and deliverables clearly support conclusions and meet the firm’s quality and documentation standards.

Client Relationships and Practice Growth

• Serve as a trusted adviser and key client contact, managing expectations and communicating difficult or uncertain conclusions with clarity and confidence.
• Build relationships with senior client stakeholders and anticipate advisory needs arising from business or regulatory developments.
• Contribute to proposals, engagement scoping, fee discussions, and business development initiatives.
• Manage engagement budgets, scope changes, resource utilization, and profitability in consultation with the Partner.
• Coordinate with overseas teams on cross-border engagements and undertake international assignments or secondments, as required.

Leadership and Professional Standards

• Lead, coach, and develop tax professionals and trainees, strengthening both technical capability and commercial judgment.
• Encourage critical analysis, constructive challenge, and clear, practical communication across the team.
• Manage competing deadlines and complex assignments while maintaining quality and effective supervision.
• Uphold the firm’s standards for ethics, independence, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, information security, and risk management.

Key Challenges of the Role

Success in this position will require the ability to:

• Advise through uncertainty: Develop reasoned recommendations where legislation, precedent, or administrative practice does not provide a straightforward answer.
• Balance competing priorities: Reconcile commercial objectives with tax obligations, cash-flow pressures, risk appetite, and long‑term business interests.
• Work with incomplete information: Identify critical information gaps, test assumptions, and explain how those limitations affect the advice.
• Turn advice into action: Design recommendations that clients can implement within their systems, resources, and transaction timelines.
• Influence senior stakeholders: Explain complex issues clearly, challenge assumptions constructively, and communicate unwelcome conclusions professionally.
• Maintain quality under pressure: Deliver consistent, defensible work across multiple advisory, compliance, and dispute engagements.

Qualifications and Experience

• ACA / Qualified Chartered Accountant with a minimum of four years of relevant post‑articleship experience in taxation, preferably within a professional services, accounting, or tax advisory firm.
• Comprehensive knowledge of Pakistan’s federal and provincial tax framework, covering direct and indirect taxation.
• Demonstrated experience in strategic tax advisory, transaction analysis, tax planning, and the preparation of reasoned technical opinions.
• Strong practical experience in compliance, assessments, audits, notices, appeals, disputes, and litigation support.
• Proven ability to assess alternative approaches and translate technical analysis into commercially practical recommendations.
• Experience managing engagements, including scoping, resource allocation, technical review, budgeting, client coordination, and final delivery.
• Strong leadership and coaching skills, with experience supervising professional staff and trainees.
• Excellent analytical, report‑writing, presentation, negotiation, and stakeholder‑management skills.
• Sound judgment in assessing uncertainty, identifying material risks, and determining when consultation or escalation is necessary.
• Experience in international taxation, cross‑border transactions, complex litigation, or coordination with overseas teams will be an added advantage.

Core Competencies

• Strategic tax advisory and commercial judgment
• Technical analysis and regulatory interpretation
• Scenario evaluation and decision support
• Tax risk and dispute management
• Client communication and stakeholder influence
• Engagement delivery and financial management
• Leadership, coaching, and team development
• Business development and relationship management
• Professional integrity and ethical judgment

Why Join Us?

• Work on a diverse portfolio of tax compliance, advisory, assessment, and representation assignments.
• Collaborate with experienced Chartered Accountants and tax professionals on complex client matters.
• Opportunity to lead teams, manage client engagements, and contribute to the growth of the tax practice.
• Participate in cross‑border and international assignments, where applicable.
• A professional environment focused on technical excellence, ownership, and career progression.

Compensation and Benefits

• Competitive salary package
• Medical and health benefits for self and family
• Paid annual leave
• Community religious leaves
• Maternity and paternity leaves
• Bereavement and family care leave
• Local and international mobility opportunities