Tax Return Data Lineage Recovery Director

The mandate

The interim Director will recover the evidence chain between financial records, tax adjustments, return workpapers, approvals and submitted direct-tax returns. The immediate risk is that final numbers can be reproduced only through local knowledge and uncontrolled files. The appointee must begin within three weeks, protect the approaching filing cycle and leave a permanent owner with a tested lineage standard.

The first fifteen business days will select high-risk return fields and trace each from submission back through calculation and transformation to governed source. Breaks will be classified as missing data, undocumented logic, version loss, unclear ownership or unsupported tax treatment. Recovery will prioritise materiality and recurrence rather than attempting archival perfection.

Temporary authority includes issuing evidence requirements, controlling workpaper versions, assigning remediation, returning unsupported calculations and approving routine corrections within delegation. Statutory signature, reserved technical positions, source-system changes and material accounting entries remain elsewhere. Other tax types and historical periods outside the agreed sample are excluded.

Handover requires a successor to lead one live filing package and a separate amended-data scenario through the new controls. Exit is accepted only when priority fields are reproducible, source owners are named, calculation changes are authorised, submission receipts reconcile and residual breaks have accountable dates. A short extension cannot substitute for a missing permanent nominee.

What you will own

• Select a risk-based return population using amount, judgment, manual transformation, prior error and source complexity.
• Trace priority fields from filed value through workpapers, tax adjustments and ledger or approved source, recording every transformation.
• Establish calculation and workpaper version control with preparer, reviewer, technical approver, change reason and effective period.
• Require resolution or explicit escalation of unsupported plug values, copied prior-year logic and undocumented manual overrides.
• Reconcile final return, payment, provision and submission evidence without treating legitimate basis differences as defects.
• Define retention and retrieval standards that support future audit response while avoiding indiscriminate duplicate archives.
• Train the permanent owner through live filing leadership and a scenario involving a late corrected source value.
• Transfer accepted lineage maps, controlled workpapers, issue logs, exclusions and the next filing calendar.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 15 years in direct-tax compliance or tax data, including Director-level recovery of return workpapers or filing evidence.
• A filed tax value you could not initially reproduce, the lineage break discovered and the consequence of correction.
• Strong understanding of ledger-to-return adjustments, workpaper control, technical approval, payments and provision reconciliation.
• Experience prioritising material lineage risk without turning a time-bound recovery into an unlimited historical archive exercise.
• Evidence of refusing copied logic or unexplained overrides despite filing pressure.
• Ability to coordinate tax and finance source owners while preserving statutory and technical approval boundaries.
• A successful handover involving a live filing and late-data test completed by the successor.

Working terms and boundaries

• The seven-month engagement is five days a week; extension is capped at five weeks and tied solely to successor-led filing acceptance.
• The interim controls workpaper and evidence standards, while statutory signature, reserved tax positions and material accounting remain elsewhere.
• Source-system redesign, other tax types and unselected historic periods are outside the recovery perimeter.
• Auckland attendance is required through sampling and the live filing cycle, with travel only for material source-evidence needs.
• Completion requires reproducible priority fields, controlled versions, successor operation and accepted ownership of residual breaks.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 10 October 2026. Mandate reference TAX-INT-2026-AKL-46.