The Indirect Tax Manager – APAC role is an amazing opportunity for an organized, technically sound, and process-oriented self-starter to build the APAC indirect tax shared service center function from the ground up while transitioning activities from local teams.  The ability to standardize and streamline processes will be an important component of this transition.  

This role is responsible for leading all aspects of indirect tax compliance across the region. The role ensures timely, accurate, and compliant reporting of indirect taxes, including VAT, GST, and other transaction-based taxes across multiple jurisdictions. This position works closely with regional finance teams, global tax, controllership, accounts payable, accounts receivable, procurement, logistics, supply chain, legal, and external advisors to ensure indirect tax obligations are met across multiple APAC jurisdictions. 

The role requires strong technical indirect tax knowledge, disciplined process management, and the ability to operate effectively across a complex systems environment, as the company utilizes multiple ERP platforms including SAP, Oracle, and other regional or legacy systems. The company operates in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. 

Key Responsibilities 

Indirect Tax Compliance 

• Manage the preparation, review, and submission of indirect tax returns across APAC jurisdictions, including GST, VAT, and similar transaction taxes. 

• Ensure accurate calculation, reporting, and payment of indirect tax liabilities in accordance with local legislation and filing deadlines. 

• Review transaction data to ensure correct tax determination on sales, purchases, imports, exports, intercompany charges, and cross-border transactions. 

• Review ERP tax code setups and transaction flows to support correct tax treatment for sales, procurement, intercompany transactions, imports, exports, and services. 

• Support automation and standardization of indirect tax compliance processes within the BSC. 

• Work effectively in an environment with multiple charts of accounts, reporting hierarchies, and varying levels of system maturity across countries. 

• Monitor indirect tax reconciliations, tax payable and receivable balances, and return-to-ledger consistency. 

• Ensure correct treatment of input tax credits, blocked input tax, reverse charge mechanisms, zero-rated supplies, exempt supplies, and bad debt relief where applicable. 

• Coordinate with finance teams and external tax advisors where local filing support, registrations, or technical sign-off is required. 

• Ensure proper retention of tax working papers, invoices, customs records, and supporting schedules in line with local legal requirements and internal policy. 

Audit, Queries, and Risk Management 

• Lead and coordinate responses to indirect tax authority notices, queries, audits, and assessments across APAC. 

• Prepare technical responses and supporting schedules in coordination with finance teams and external tax advisors. 

• Track audit exposures, proposed adjustments, and status of open years. 

• Identify indirect tax and withholding tax risks arising from incorrect invoicing, tax coding, master data issues, process failures, or system limitations. 

• Recommend and implement corrective actions to reduce compliance risk, penalties, and interest exposure. 

• Support internal audits and control testing related to indirect tax and withholding tax processes. 

Education and Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Tax, Law, or related discipline. 

• Professional qualification preferred, such as CA, CPA, ACCA, CTA, or equivalent. 

• Indirect tax specialization or relevant tax certification. 

• Ability to speak multiple languages is a plus. 
   

Experience 

• Significant experience in indirect tax compliance, preferably with a mix of multinational industry and public accounting or advisory experience. 

• Strong experience in APAC indirect tax compliance, including GST, VAT, or similar transaction taxes. 

• Experience operating in a shared service center model is strongly preferred. 

• Experience in a manufacturing, industrial, engineering, or multinational product-based environment is preferred. 

• Demonstrated experience managing external advisors and coordinating multi-country compliance processes. 

• Experience with tax audits, tax authority queries, and controversy management across APAC jurisdictions. 

• Experience supporting withholding tax compliance processes and advising on withholding tax treatment is desirable. 

• Experience working with multiple ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle 

• Ability to extract, interpret, and reconcile financial and transactional data from different ERP environments for tax reporting and compliance purposes. 
   

Technical Knowledge 

• Strong knowledge of indirect tax concepts and compliance across key APAC countries. 

• Understanding of invoice controls, tax code governance, ERP tax determination, and transaction-level tax data review. 

• Knowledge of tax authority audit processes, record retention requirements, and indirect tax control frameworks. 

• Good grasp of statutory accounting and reconciliation of indirect tax return positions to ledger balances and transactional source data. 

• Good understanding of tax data flows across ERP systems, including the challenges of data extraction, account mapping, and reconciliation in a multi-ERP environment. 
   

Skills and Competencies 

• Comfortable developing operational roadmap for newly created function. 

• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability. 

• High attention to detail and accuracy. 

• Ability to manage multiple deadlines across jurisdictions. 

• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills. 

• Comfortable operating in a matrixed global organization. 

• Process improvement mindset with focus on standardization and controls. 

• Ability to interpret complex tax legislation and translate it into practical actions. 

• Strong Excel and ERP literacy. 

• Experience with tax reporting tools. 

• Systems awareness and the ability to work effectively with diverse finance platforms and inconsistent source-data structures. 

• Ability to explain tax treatment clearly to non-tax stakeholders in procurement, AP, AR, logistics, and finance teams.