Specialist: Legal & Domestic at The South African Revenue Service (SARS)

Job Purpose

• To provide technical legal support and assist the business area. S/he will be responsible to provide legal analysis and advice, make recommendations aimed at improving operational policies, participate in various tax committees and be responsible for training and mentoring the team.

Education and Experience

Minimum Qualification & Experience Required

• BA Law / LLB Degree (NQF 7) AND 8-10 year’s experience in tax law environment of with 3-4 years at a junior specialist level in Income Tax advisory experience.
• Must be an Admitted Attorney or Advocate.

Minimum Functional Requirements

• Admitted Attorney or Advocate OR BCom in Accounting ; CA (SA) an advantage
• Post admission tax law experience
• Assess and interpret, intricate tax structures and legal frameworks including corporate reorganisations

Job Outputs:

Process

• Provide legal advice on proposed tax assessments, make recommendations and facilitate improvement.
• Recommend changes to optimise processes, systems, practice area and associated procedures and execute the implementation of change and innovation.
• Plan for value-added, continuous practice & system improvements to deliver on objectives that enhance tactical implementation and excellence.
• Proactively identify interconnected legal problems, determine their 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.
• 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.
• Identify and mitigate tax risks effectively.
• Provide legal opinions on tax matters, ensuring compliance with various tax legislation and related laws.
• Integrate business information, compare, analyse & produce reports to identify trends, discrepancies & inconsistencies for decision making purposes.
• Analyse and make recommendations about improvements to specialist systems, procedures and associated area's practice.
• Contribute to the optimum utilisation of organisational resources, advising on effective planning and development of area of specialisation resource plans.
• Optimise goal achievement through tactical strategy implementation and optimisation of practises, processes & systems across an internal value chain.

Governance

• Develop and/or align governance and compliance policies for own practice area to identify and manage risk exposure liability.
• Manage and or advise on the translation and application of policy in a specific functional area

People

• Provide specialist know-how, support, advice and practice thought leadership in area of expertise.
• Integrate new knowledge and transfer skills attained through formal and informal learning opportunities in the execution of your job.

Finance

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

Client

• Develop & ensure implementation of practices 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

• Expertise in context
• Honesty and Integrity
• Trust
• Respect
• Problem solving and analysis
• Fairness and Transparency
• Analytical Thinking
• Accountability
• Conceptual Ability
• Adaptability
• Persuasion ability
• External Awareness
• Attention to detail
• Organisational awareness
• Building Sustainability
• Commitment to continuous learning
• Commercial acumen

Technical competencies

• Functional Policies and procedures
• Tax law advisory and interpretation
• General Legal Knowledge and knowledge of ethics
• Reporting
• Business Knowledge
• Efficiency improvement
• Tax law Compliance
• Legal Writing Skills
• Tax Dispute Resolution
• Risk identification