HM Revenue & Customs
Direct Tax Policy and Technical Specialist
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Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Stratford
Job Summary
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These vacancies are for tax policy and technical professionals in the Financial Products and Services Team (FPST) within Business, Assets and International (BAI). BAI is HMRC’s centre of expertise for direct business and international taxation, as well as the taxation of capital assets. Within BAI, FPST is responsible for tax policy development and technical advice across a wide range of financial instruments and transactions. The team also designs and maintains specialist tax regimes and processes for the financial services sector, including banking, insurance, collective investment schemes and asset management.
Job Description
Successful candidates will join a high-performing, collaborative and supportive team, leading complex and rewarding direct tax policy and technical work. Responsibilities will be tailored to the successful candidates’ skills and experience but will focus on the taxation of financial instruments generally rather than on the financial sector specifically. The roles will include developing tax policy and providing technical advice and support to compliance colleagues on casework, including contributing to the litigation of cases through the courts.
You will encounter novel, challenging and economically significant issues and situations. You can expect to be involved in the development of tax policy, advising ministers, and you will be involved in and lead on advising operational colleagues on the technical aspects of significant tax disputes and on their policy implications. Close, effective and collaborative partnering with colleagues from across BAI and wider HMRC (particularly compliance directorates), as well as HM Treasury and non-government stakeholders, will be essential. You will engage with high calibre professional tax advisers acting on behalf of major taxpayers.
You will work on, and have responsibility for, the taxation of certain types of financial instrument (for example corporate debt, derivatives, crypto assets, tokenised assets)and you may work on particular tax regimes, such as the Corporate Interest Restriction. There will be some flexibility around the precise allocation of subject matter.
The Roles Are Likely To Include:
- Providing technical leadership on major tax disputes, up to and including litigation in court
- Providing technical advice and support to colleagues across HMRC and externally
- Representing HMRC externally on relevant policy and technical matters
- Developing tax policy and providing advice to ministers and HM Treasury.
- Running public consultations to support policy making
- Developing new legislation up to and including its passage through parliament
- Contributing to Fiscal Events.
- Working with senior industry representatives and their advisers to understand policy and technical issues
- Promoting knowledge and understanding of the taxation of financial instruments to build capacity across the department
- Developing, with appropriate support, professional knowledge and skills while contributing to team development.
Person Specification
As well as holding required qualifications, the successful applicants will need to demonstrate relevant experience and provide evidence of how they meet the following essential criteria.
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Essential Criteria
- Having significant experience of working, taking a lead on and resolving complex direct tax issues in technical, policy or litigation contexts.
- Working to firm deadlines, while maintaining quality and managing ambiguity and uncertainty
- Possessing or being able to rapidly develop relevant technical knowledge and policy skills
- Establishing and developing collaborative and constructive working relationships even where aims and priorities may differ
- Possessing strong oral and written communication skills.
Further Location Information
Please ensure that you only apply for a location that you are willing and able to work from, as we will only make one offer of employment. Any additional notes included in a ‘Further Location Preferences (optional)’ field within the application form, will not be considered. Please be aware that you cannot change your location preference after submitting your application.
Leeds Locations
Moves Adjustment Payment will be available for this role, provided the successful applicant is a current HMRC colleague in Bradford and meets the eligibility requirements outlined in the HMRC’s Moves Adjustment Payment guidance.
Qualifications
These are Tax Professional roles. The post holders must hold one or more of the following qualifications:
- HMRC's Tax Specialist Programme or predecessor qualifications (TPDP, IDP, ITS2, CPT, FT2)
- Chartered Tax Adviser (with direct taxes options)
- Advanced Diploma in International Taxation
- Full membership of one of the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (ICAEW, ICAS, ICAI, ACCA, CIPFA), provided that direct tax matters make up a substantial part of your professional experience.
- Qualification as a Solicitor, Barrister or CILEX Lawyer (including the Professional stage Business and Commercial Law module) in England and Wales (or equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland), provided that direct tax matters make up a substantial part of your professional experience.
- Equivalent Qualifications, to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Technical Skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Presentation demonstrating their tax technical experience and skills by way of real life examples. The presentation will focus in particular on drawing out candidates’ experience of handling complex technical issues.
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £58,541, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £16,959 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs.
We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days.
- Pension - We make contributions to our colleagues’ Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary.
- Family friendly policies.
- Personal support.
- Coaching and development.
To find out more about HMRC benefits and find out what it’s really like to work for HMRC hear from our insiders or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
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Selection Process Details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.
How To Apply
As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide the following:
- A name-blind CV, including your job history covering (up to) your last 5 roles. For each role, you should outline your key responsibilities and achievements, demonstrating how your experience is relevant to this role (maximum 300 words per role). You will also be asked to list your qualifications in a separate section.
- A 1000-word personal statement. Your Personal Statement should be aligned to and clearly demonstrate how you meet each of the essential criteria for the role, as set out in the person specification part of the advert.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Sift
In the event of a large number of applications being received, an initial sift may be held on the CV.
At full sift your CV and your Personal Statement will be assessed, with the successful candidates being invited to interview.
We may also raise the score required at any stage of the process if we receive a high number of applications.
Interview
During the panel interview, you will be assessed on Experience and a Technical Presentation.
You will be asked questions with reference to the job specification and essential criteria, to assess your experience and explore in detail what you are capable of, and this is an opportunity to evidence your expertise.
Candidates will also be asked to deliver a presentation demonstrating their tax technical experience and skills by way of real life examples. The presentation will focus in particular on drawing out candidates’ experience of handling complex technical issues. Candidates will have 10 minutes to deliver a presentation, followed by questions from the panel. Further information about the presentation requirements will be provided in advance of the interview.
Interviews will take place via video link.
Sift and interview dates to be confirmed. Please note that circumstances may arise that require the planned interview format to change. We will endeavour to provide you with as much notice of any change as possible.
Eligibility
Please take extra care to tick the correct boxes in the eligibility sections of your application form. Mistakes sometimes happen but if you contact us later than two working days (Monday-Friday) before the vacancy closes, we may not be able to reopen your application for you. If you do make a mistake with your eligibility form, or have withdrawn yourself in error and need your application reinstated whilst the campaign is still live, please contact us via: unitybusinessservicesrecruitmentresults@hmrc.gov.uk – Use the subject line to insert appropriate wording for example – ‘Please re-open my application – [insert vacancy ref] & vacancy closing date [insert date]’.
To check that you are eligible to apply for this role, please review the eligibility information before submitting your application.
Exceptionally, candidates who are not successful at this grade may be considered for appointment to similar roles at a lower grade where the eligibility criteria are met. If this applies, we
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