Senior Lead Payroll Tax Analyst - America's

Overview

This role serves as the enterprise owner of payroll tax governance, compliance strategy, risk management, and operational excellence across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. The position leads the full payroll tax lifecycle, including tax configuration and calculations, agency registrations, deposits and filings, reconciliations, tax notices, amendments, quarter-end and year-end activities, equity compensation taxation, controls, audits, and issue resolution. This leader establishes standards, drives consistent controls, and partners cross-functionally to shape a scalable payroll tax operating model as the organization grows.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end U.S. federal, state, and local payroll tax compliance, including employee and employer withholding; taxable wage reporting; deposits; returns; reconciliations; corrections; and related accounting support.
• Serve as the payroll tax functional lead for Workday Payroll, including tax configuration, earnings and deduction taxability, jurisdiction setup, calculation validation, testing, reporting, and production issue resolution.
• Oversee ADP Smart Compliance Employment Tax activities, including data transmission, tax funding, deposits, filings, tax profiles, quarter-end exceptions, Statements of Deposit, amendments, tax notices, and service cases.
• Lead quarter-end and year-end payroll tax activities, including balancing and review of Forms 941, 940, W-2, W-3, W-2c, W-3c, state and local returns, and amended filings.
• Reconcile taxable wages and payroll tax liabilities across Workday Payroll, ADP Smart Compliance, payroll registers, general ledger accounts, cash funding, and filed returns; research and resolve variances.
• Manage federal, state, and local tax notices and agency inquiries from receipt through resolution, including research, response preparation, vendor coordination, penalty abatement, refunds, and documentation.
• Manage payroll tax registrations, tax identification numbers, powers of attorney, deposit frequencies, tax rates, account maintenance, and account closures for new and existing jurisdictions.
• Own payroll taxation and reporting for RSUs, PSUs, ESPP, stock options, sell-to-cover transactions, tax shortfalls, excess withholding refunds, and related corrections in partnership with Stock Administration.
• Provide expert guidance on multi-state and local taxation, remote and mobile employees, supplemental wages, FICA, FUTA, SUI, paid leave and disability programs, reciprocity, resident and work jurisdictions, and other complex tax scenarios.
• Monitor legislative and regulatory changes; assess impact and coordinate updates to payroll configuration, vendor setup, controls, procedures, testing, reporting, and employee communications.
• Maintain SOX-ready payroll tax controls, process documentation, calendars, issue trackers, reconciliations, audit support, and evidence of review; identify opportunities to automate and strengthen processes.
• Lead complex payroll tax issue resolution with internal partners, tax authorities, ADP, Workday support teams, auditors, and external partners; escalate vendor service or compliance risks when needed.
• Support payroll tax audits, merger and acquisition activity, legal entity changes, successor employer requirements, and other special projects.
• Develop and maintain the payroll tax governance framework for the Americas, including policies, standards, controls, compliance calendars, review protocols, documentation requirements, and issue escalation paths.
• Serve as the organization’s highest-level payroll tax authority for the covered countries, establishing positions on complex matters and leading cross-functional decisions that affect payroll compliance, accounting, system design, and employee reporting.
• Identify, assess, prioritize, and mitigate payroll tax risk across covered jurisdictions; provide leadership reporting on material exposures, audit findings, remediation plans, and recurring compliance trends.
• Lead complex payroll tax investigations, corrections, voluntary disclosures, agency examinations, penalty-abatement efforts, and remediation programs through closure.
• Lead payroll tax workstreams for enterprise initiatives, including Workday Payroll implementation and optimization, acquisitions, divestitures, legal entity changes, reorganizations, and payroll transformation programs.
• Establish payroll tax design principles and control requirements that can scale to future countries, payroll solutions, and operating models.
• Provide technical direction, coaching, and functional leadership to regional payroll teams and future payroll tax resources; contribute to talent planning and organizational design for the payroll tax function.
• Own payroll tax governance and compliance oversight for Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, coordinating with local payroll providers and internal stakeholders while maintaining primary ownership of U.S. payroll tax.
• Provide backup support for U.S. payroll processing and related payroll compliance activities when necessary.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, Taxation, Human Resources, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
• At least 10 years of progressive payroll tax experience, including deep, hands-on responsibility for U.S. federal, state, and local payroll taxes in a complex, multi-state environment and experience supporting payroll tax matters across multiple countries.
• Demonstrated ability to independently own the full payroll tax lifecycle, including configuration, calculations, funding, filings, reconciliations, notices, amendments, quarter-end, year-end, and controls.
• Hands-on Workday Payroll experience, including U.S. payroll tax configuration, calculation review, testing, reconciliation, reporting, and issue resolution.
• Experience with ADP Smart Compliance Employment Tax or a comparable enterprise payroll tax filing platform.
• Strong technical knowledge of federal, multi-state, and local payroll taxation, including FICA, FUTA, SUI, supplemental wages, paid leave and disability programs, reciprocity, and amended returns.
• Experience with payroll taxation and reporting for RSUs, ESPP, and other equity compensation.
• Experience managing tax notices, registrations, agency inquiries, vendor escalations, tax reconciliations, and payroll tax controls.
• Ability to research complex payroll tax matters, interpret requirements, assess enterprise risk, document conclusions, influence decisions, and drive issues through resolution with limited direction.
• Strong analytical, executive communication, program leadership, documentation, and cross-functional influence skills.
• Demonstrated experience designing payroll tax governance frameworks, compliance programs, controls, and audit-readiness strategies.
• Experience leading payroll tax workstreams for enterprise payroll, finance, HR, equity, or system transformation initiatives.
• Proven ability to influence senior leadership and drive decisions across multiple functions without direct authority.
• Experience translating regulatory requirements and risk assessments into scalable processes, system requirements, controls, and remediation plans.

Preferred

• Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) designation.
• Workday Payroll certification or extensive Workday Payroll implementation and production-support experience.
• Direct experience with the Workday Payroll and ADP Smart Compliance integration.
• Experience in a large, publicly traded organization with significant multi-state payroll and equity compensation activity.
• Experience with SOX controls, internal and external audits, acquisitions, divestitures, legal entity changes, or successor employer payroll tax requirements.
• Direct experience supporting payroll tax requirements in one or more of the following countries: Canada, Mexico, Argentina, or Brazil.
• Experience building or maturing a payroll tax function, center of excellence, or governance program.
• Experience providing functional leadership to payroll tax specialists, regional payroll teams, or external service providers.

Compensation & Benefits

• Pay level within the salary range may be based on factors including relevant education; qualifications; certifications; experience; skills; ability; knowledge of the job; performance and results; geographic location; shift; internal and external equity; and business/organizational needs.
• Salary range reflects the range of possible compensation at the time of this posting. The organization may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range applies only for jobs to be performed in California, Colorado, New York or remote jobs that can be performed in California, Colorado and New York. The range may be modified in the future.
• Eligibility for an incentive plan: Short-Term Incentive (STI) Plan with incentive awards based on Company and individual performance. Depending on role and performance, eligibility may include an annual Long-Term Incentive (LTI) program consisting of restricted stock units (RSUs) or cash equivalents, subject to the terms of the LTI plan. Not all roles are eligible for the LTI program and not all roles are eligible for equity under the LTI plan. RSU awards may be available to eligible new hires, subject to the organization’s standard terms and conditions for restricted stock unit awards.
• Comprehensive benefits package including paid vacation time; paid sick leave; medical/dental/vision insurance; life, accident and disability insurance; tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts; employee assistance program; and other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity; tuition reimbursement; transit; employee stock purchase plan; and a 401(k) savings plan.
• Note: No amount of pay is considered wages or compensation until earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, benefits, or other form of compensation and benefits remains in the organization’s sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the organization’s sole discretion, consistent with the law.

Location

Americas (United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil). Salary range applicability: jobs performed in California, Colorado, New York, or remote jobs that can be performed in California, Colorado and New York.