Specialist: Audit at The South African Revenue Service (SARS)

Job Purpose

• To provide advice and guidance in the execution of audits and independently plan and conduct highly complex audits across multiple tax types, multiple periods with multiple risks, understanding the risk implications across other tax types, in compliance with all legislative requirements.

Education and Experience

Minimum Qualification & Experience Required

• Relevant Bachelor Degree / Advanced Diploma (NQF 7) in Tax/Accounting/Audit and 8-10 years' experience in a tax audit environment, of which 3-4 years ideally at operational specialist level

OR

• Senior Certificate (NQF4) AND and 15 years experience in tax audit environment.

Job Outputs:

Process

• Analyse and make recommendations about improvements to specialist systems, procedures and associated area's practice.
• Ability to understand interpret and apply tax rulings
• Ability to audit trust and taxpayer foreign exposure
• Apply necessary discretion & judgment in making decisions & overcoming obstacles in order to attain set goals & objectives for area of accountability.
• Plan, conduct and manage highly complex risk based audits to ensure compliance with relevant acts.
• Identify tax gaps and evasion schemes involving complex matters and suggest potential solutions to minimize tax risks.
• Utilise understanding of functional area, legislation and mandate to make recommendations to the functional strategy.
• Select, develop and assess the applicability of methods and techniques to be applied within the functional work unit.
• Provide end-to-end query resolution advice on complex audits conducted by the team.
• Contribute to the optimum utilisation of org. resources, advising on effective planning and development of area of specialisation resource plans.
• Develop a single practice area in alignment with operational activity and procedural frameworks and ensure tactical implementation.
• Draw on own technical or professional expertise, knowledge & experience to identify & recommend tactical solutions to defined problems in practices
• Integrate business information, compare, analyse & produce reports to identify trends, discrepancies & inconsistencies for decision making purposes.
• Optimise goal achievement through tactical strategy implementation and optimisation of practises, processes & systems across an internal value chain
• Plan for value-added, continuous practice & system improvements to deliver on objectives to enhance tactical implementation and excellence.
• Proactively identify interconnected problems, determine its impact and use to develop best fit alternatives, best practice implementation solutions.
• Translate top-down policy in relation to own practice area and communicate impact to relevant stakeholders.
• Recommend changes to optimise processes, systems, practice area and associated procedures and execute the implementation of change and innovation.
• To enable Investigative audit to achieve full scope audit case targets
• To raise impactful/credible assessments in order to collect revenue
• Detecting and deterring non-compliance and influence and enforce compliance with tax legislation by conducting effective, efficient, and quality audits
• Conduct audits (plan, execute, finalize) of a high standard in which policies, standards, procedures, and legislation were correctly applied
• Timely completion of audits and disputes aligned to the SARS service charter
• Assist in the debt collection by providing information to ensure efficient and effective collection of all cases in which additional audit assessments were raised
• Develop productive relationships with team members and stakeholders to drive collective performance
• Provide technical guidance and training to other team members
• Identify initiatives to impact on compliance levels and refer to Case selection
• Identify changes required to legislation to close loopholes
   

Governance

• Develop & ensure implementation of a practice that builds service delivery excellence & encourage others to provide exceptional stakeholder service.
• Monitor the application and promote governance required legal compliance and organisational discipline in the context of policies and processes.
• Comply with organisational internal control and governance standards in finance and procurement processes.
   

People

• Integrate new knowledge and transfer skills attained through formal and informal learning opportunities in the execution of your job.
• Provide specialist know-how, support, advice and practice thought leadership in area of expertise.
• Enable a culture where information regarding successes, issues, trends and ideas are actively shared between team members.
• Provide specialist support and advice where required in area of expertise.
• Build strong relationships through providing direction and leadership to own team and expressing positive expectations.
   

Finance

• Implement and monitor financial control, management of costs and corporate governance in area of specialisation.
   

Client

• Develop & ensure implementation of a practice that builds service delivery excellence & encourage others to provide exceptional stakeholder service.
• Participate in the specialist practice community and contribute positively to organisation knowledge management.
• Provide authoritative, specialist expertise and advice to internal and external stakeholders.
   

Behavioural competencies

• Accountability
• Analytical Thinking
• Attention to Detail
• Building Sustainability
• Commitment to Continuous Learning
• Conceptual Ability
• Conceptual Thinking
• Drive for Results
• Expertise in Context
• Fairness and Transparency
• Honesty and Integrity
• Organisational Awareness
• Problem Solving and Analysis
• Respect
• Trust
   

Technical competencies

• Business Knowledge
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Decisiveness
• Efficiency improvement
• Financial Accounting
• Functional Policies and Procedures
• Planning and Organising
• Quality Orientation
• Reporting
   

Compliance Competency

• Security Clearance: GOC Confidential