AddressDepartment: Office of Human Resources
Salary/Grade: EXS/12
Position Summary
Reporting to the Director of Operations, Payroll, and Support, the Payroll Tax Manager oversees all tax operations for the HR payroll division, including federal and state reporting and filing requirements, audit and compliance procedures, tax liability reconciliation, and foreign national processing. This role is responsible for providing subject matter expertise regarding laws and regulations for tax and payroll withholding procedures.
- Note: Not all aspects of the job are covered by this job description.
Principal Responsibilities
Tax Documentation & Reconciliation
- Establishes, monitors, and maintains the Payroll Tax reconciliation process including reconciling internal liability ledger accounts and investigating unusual balances or withholdings.
- Examines employee and employer tax liability by performing audits and variance analyses for each payroll cycle.
- Monitors relevant regulatory agencies and ruling bodies to ensure compliance with all Payroll Tax-related laws and regulations at the federal, state, and local levels.
Reporting and Tax Form Preparation
- Examines tax regulation implications and oversees the completion of accurate Payroll Tax returns to minimize impact to the organization.
- Understands and prepares UI 3/40 report and other required state and federal filings.
- Prepares and reconciles annual Forms W-2 and 1042-S; including processing and filing corrections.
- Maintains tax data and projections for reports to senior management, internal audit requests, and external report requirements.
System Administration
- Maintains all tax-related systems including in-house software and external accounts with external partners.
- Consults with IT to ensure systems, coding, and automated processes are in compliance with all applicable rules and regulations.
- Organizes testing and validation for any system upgrade that impacts withholding rules or deductions.
- Creates, updates, and monitors individual payroll data when necessary to address tax balance corrections or imputes.
Customer Service
- Ensures optimal customer service by handling tax-related questions via phone, email, or mail.
- Acts as an escalation point to research and resolve individual tax issues and questions.
- Communicates tax policy and rule changes to the impacted population, while ensuring content remains relevant in external-facing websites and internal procedures.
- Collaborates with external departments, including Accounting Services, Tax & Regulatory Services, and the Office for International Students and Scholars, to provide consolidated service to the employee community.
Policy and Project Administration
- Interprets tax and residency policies and ensures university procedures and records are compliant with all applicable laws.
- Contributes to the development of polices, practices and guidelines for efficient operations while monitoring process improvement implementation and impact.
- Oversees specialized system projects including technical updates, tax compliance testing, third-party vendor integrations, and tax filing and tax return preparation.
Management
- Supervises and coordinates the work activities of subordinates and staff, makes recommendations for evaluation, hiring, firing or administration of discipline.
- Establishes goals and performance objectives.
- Coaches and counsels staff members relative to performance improvement, training and development, team effectives, and cross-training.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or the equivalent combination of education, training and experience from which comparable knowledge and skills can be acquired.
- Five years of experience in tax preparation, tax management, or an equivalent combination of experience in a tax or payroll manager role.
- Detailed understanding of foreign national taxation, preferably in an educational, research, or medical institution.
- Familiarity with all payroll and tax regulations at the federal, state and local level.
- Experience with using and maintaining enterprise systems for tax and human resources.
- Demonstrated proficiency with the Microsoft Office Suite of products, grammar, and spelling, and punctuation, oral and written communications.
- Excellent customer service and interpersonal skills and tactful in dealing with people.
Target hiring range for this position will be between $110,000-$130,000 per year. Offered salary will be determined by the applicant’s education, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data
Northwestern strongly recommends COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters for people who can obtain them as a critical tool for minimizing severe illness. More information can be found on the COVID-19 and Campus Updates webpage.
The Northwestern campus sits on the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa as well as the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations. We acknowledge and honor the original people of the land upon which Northwestern University stands, and the Native people who remain on this land today.
