Overview
Tax Specialist and Accelerated Issues Co-ordinator – Belfast – Erskine House
About the job
Job summary
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HMRC’s Wealthy compliance teams (“Wealthy”) are responsible for the tax compliance of the UK’s wealthiest individuals. Wealthy individuals often have complex tax affairs that present significant challenges to an effective tax administration. Given the size and nature of the tax at risk within the wealthy population it increases the opportunities and risks of non-compliance.
Our teams assure the tax paid by wealthy individuals and tackle risks and non-compliant behaviours to ensure that wealthy individuals pay what they owe. This involves a strong, policy, technical and data led approach to promoting compliance and preventing non-compliance that encourages and supports the customer to get things right first time and contributes to the health of the tax system.
Our approach is tailored to the risk that is prepared by our customers.
Candidate Information Session
We will be holding a Candidate Information Session where you can hear what experience we are looking for this individual to bring to this role, along with giving you information about how to apply and what the next steps will be.
We are holding information sessions about this role on 18th August 2025 at 5pm. To register, click https://forms.office.com/e/Wchzn8QS6J
Job description
Within Wealthy, HMRC’s Accelerated Response team tackle some of the UK’s most complex and high profile tax compliance cases involving high-net-worth individuals. Operating nationally, this specialist team brings together senior tax professionals with broad cross-tax expertise to lead bespoke investigations that often span multiple tax regimes and business areas. Working collaboratively with legal and advisory partners, the Accelerated Response team identifies and addresses significant tax risks, often under intense scrutiny and the highest levels of governance.
The work is intellectually demanding, commercially sensitive and strategically important, requiring a blend of technical acumen, investigative instinct and a deep understanding of wealth structures and tax planning behaviours.
Job Specification
The Grade 7 tax professional role sits within HMRC Accelerated response team, supporting the High-Risk Wealth Programme (HRWP) and Wealthy Accelerated Resolution Programme (WARP). The successful candidate will lead on WARP projects and act as a deputy lead on HRWP projects, both of which involve complex, high-value risks associated with wealthy individuals and their connected entities. Working in cross-functional project teams, you’ll apply your tax technical expertise to accelerate case progression, overcome barriers and contribute to strategic decision-making. The role is dynamic, collaborative and offers the opportunity to shape outcomes on some of HMRC most challenging compliance cases.
Person specification
We’re looking for a qualified tax professional with strong cross tax knowledge and experience in complex compliance or investigations. You’ll be confident working across multiple tax regimes, including offshore arrangements and subject to anti-avoidance provisions, and able to apply your expertise to novel or contentious issues. Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills are essential, as is the ability to work autonomously, adapt quickly, and influence outcomes at pace. This is a great opportunity for someone looking to deepen their technical impact while contributing to capability building and innovation within a high performing national team.
Responsibilities
This Accelerated Response role will require strong leadership, organisational and communication skills with the ability to adapt to differing customer needs quickly. You will be responsible for:
- Leading WARP projects to accelerate issues to resolution.
- Supporting the leadership of HRWP projects, deputising as necessary, to co-ordinate and resolve all issues.
- Co-ordinating the research of new areas of risk.
- Liaising with internal stakeholders to add value to ongoing areas of work.
- Learning and adapting to new ways of working. Help build capability within project teams and share knowledge wider across HMRC.
- Providing technical or compliance expertise required to progress HRWP and WARP projects. As projects and new risks develop assist with new ways of working to include Upstream activity.
- Upskilling yourself and other members of Accelerated Response, drawing on often unique issues and on lessons learned from each project.
- Supporting the programme leadership and management team by providing timely reports on project progress etc.
Essential Criteria:
• A professional qualification and relevant tax experience.
• Experience of influencing through written and verbal communications.
Plus at least one of the following:
• Recent demonstrable tax knowledge and experience of domicile, residence and the offshore anti-avoidance provision for income tax and capital gains tax.
• Recent demonstrable tax knowledge and experience of complex or cross-tax investigations involving multiples head of tax or interaction of taxes.
• Experience of building the capability of yourself and others in a tax professional environment.
Qualifications– Please see qualifications listed below.
For existing civil servants:In October 2023, a decision was made that applicants for G7 Tax Professional roles must have successfully completed the Tax Specialist Programme or hold an equivalent qualification. To enable career development for experienced colleagues already in Tax Professional roles, if you have been successful in gaining a G7 Tax Professional role through open competition prior to October 2023, and you are not subject to any Performance Management action, you are now able to apply on level transfer for other G7 Tax Professional roles. Please note that if you applied for a non-tax professional role on promotion to Grade 7 prior to October 2023 but have tax experience, you would not be able to apply on level for tax professional roles.
Additional Information – Transitional Sites
For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations.
If your location preference is for one of the following sites, it’s important to note that these are not long-term sites for HMRC and we will require you to move to a new building in the future, subject to our location strategy and the applicable employee policies at that time.
These sites are:
• Waterview Park, Washington – moving to Pilgrims Quarter, Newcastle
• Benton Park View, Newcastle – moving to Pilgrims Quarter, Newcastle
• Centenary Court, Bradford – moving to 7 and 8 Wellington Place, Leeds
• Lynx House, Portsmouth – moving to No.1 The Goodsyard, Portsmouth
• Telford Plaza, Telford – moving to Parkside Court, Telford
• Trinity Bridge House, Manchester – moving to an alternative office in Manchester/ Salford
You will be given more information about what this means at the job offer stage.
Qualifications
You should hold one of the following qualifications:
• CTA Qualified.
• STEP or other chartered body qualification with UK Tax Specialism.
Technical skills
We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Technical Question
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £56,344, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £16,322 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
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
Things you need to know
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 and previous experiences to reference how you meet the Essential Criteria and the Person Specification outlined in the advert. For each job role please provide a brief description of the role and key achievements, key responsibilities and key achievements (max 300 words per role). You will be assessed against the Essential Criteria and the Person Specification outlined in the advert.
- In the CV Qualification Box please only confirm the mandatory qualifications you hold.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Sift
If you are successful at Sift stage then you will be 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 interviewyou will be asked Experience based questions in relation to the Essential Criteria and Person Specification within the CV, to assess your experience and explore in detail your technical capability and expertise.
There will also be a technical question and experience based assessment which will be emailed to you shortly before your interview.
Interviews will take place virtually, via video link.
Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.
Eligibility
Please take extra care to tick the correct boxes in the eligibility sections of your application form. We understand mistakes sometimes happen but if you contact us later than two working days (Monday-Friday) before the vacancy closes, we will not be able to reopen your application for you. If you do make a mistake with your eligibility form, 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.
Reserve List
A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles – if this applies to you, we’ll let you know via your Civil Service Jobs account.
Merit List
After interview, a single merit list will be created, and you will only be considered for posts in locations you have expressed a preference for. Appointments will be made in strict merit order in line with the set number of roles in each location.
Criminal Record Check
Applications received from candidates with a criminal record are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.
Reasonable Adjustments
We want to make sure no one is put at a disadvantage during our recruitment process. To assist you with this, we will reduce or remove any barriers where possible and provide additional support where appropriate.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
- Contact the UBS Recruitment team via unitybusinessservicesrecruitmentresults@hmrc.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.
Important information for existing HMRC contractual homeworkers
This role may be suitable for existing HMRC employees who are contractual homeworkers. Occasional attendance to the office will be required where there is a business need. Please consider the advertised office locations for this role when applying and only select locations from the ‘location preferences’ section that you can travel to.
Terms and Conditions
Customer facing roles in HMRC require the ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English and/or Welsh where required. Where this is an essential requirement, this will be tested as part of the selection process.
HMRC has a presence in every region of the UK. For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations.
The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. The evidence you provide in your application must relate to your own experiences.
Any instances of plagiarism or other forms of cheating will be investigated and, if proven, the relevant application(s) will be withdrawn from the process.
Recording of interviews is prohibited unless explicit agreement is sought in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulations.
Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert.
Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.
A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.
New entrants will join on the minimum of the pay band.
Please note that, if you are applying for roles on a part-time basis, the salary agreed will be pro-rata, reflective of the working hours agreed within your contract.
If you experience accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ‘Contact point for applicants’ section.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
