Direct Tax Compliance Recovery Director

The mandate

The interim seat exists to take executive control of the direct-tax compliance calendar and strengthen the organisation's ability to track filing obligations and manage tax positions. The leader must be able to begin within three weeks and build capability so that the permanent team can run the calendar independently. The assignment is complete when that handover is secure.

During the first fifteen working days, the Director will validate open corporate-income-tax returns, advance-tax computations, withholding dependencies, assessments, notices and provision-to-return differences. A single obligations register will replace disconnected status reports. Items will be ranked by legal deadline, financial exposure, evidence readiness and decision dependency so effort follows risk rather than whichever escalation is loudest.

Temporary authority includes resetting the compliance calendar, assigning accountable preparers and reviewers, returning unsupported computations, commissioning agreed specialist opinions and escalating positions whose risk exceeds delegated tolerances. The Director may not settle litigation, appoint permanent staff, change legal structure or approve transactions without the reserved owner. GST and other indirect taxes are excluded except where their data is a necessary input to direct-tax filings.

Handover starts in month four. The nominated successor must lead two filing waves, chair the open-risk review and demonstrate control of notices and reconciliations while the interim observes. Departure requires a signed obligations map, cleared priority backlog, complete evidence index, current authority matrix and a ninety-day forward calendar accepted by the CFO.

What you will own

• Reconcile every material direct-tax obligation to a named entity, jurisdiction, deadline, preparer, reviewer, evidence location and escalation route within twenty business days.
• Triage overdue and near-due filings by statutory consequence and cash exposure, then secure written recovery decisions rather than carrying unowned red status.
• Reperform selected current-tax computations and return-to-provision bridges to identify whether delay conceals data, policy or review failure.
• Establish a notice-control desk that records receipt, response strategy, counsel input, financial exposure, due date and authorised signatory for each matter.
• Require contemporaneous support for material deductions, credits, withholding positions and intercompany charges before approving a filing recommendation.
• Clear the priority backlog without waiving maker-checker discipline or using unsupported protective assumptions to meet dates.
• Transfer calendar ownership through two successor-led filing waves, recording observed decisions and remediation before final acceptance.
• Deliver a closure paper separating completed obligations, accepted residual risks, excluded work and decisions reserved for permanent leadership.

Candidate qualifications

• Chartered Accountant qualification and at least 15 years of Indian direct-tax compliance and controversy leadership, including a time-bound remediation at Director level.
• Evidence of recovering a fragmented statutory calendar across multiple entities while maintaining computation quality and documented approval rights.
• Direct experience with corporate-income-tax returns, advance tax, tax audit dependencies, withholding, assessments, notices and provision-to-return reconciliation.
• A case showing how you identified a material position hidden behind a status-reporting failure and changed the response before the statutory deadline.
• Demonstrated judgment about when to use internal analysis, specialist counsel or formal escalation, including control of advice scope and cost.
• Proven ability to impose evidence standards under deadline pressure without displacing accountability from permanent tax owners.
• A handover record involving rehearsed successor decisions, operating evidence and an accepted forward obligations calendar.

Working terms and boundaries

• The engagement is nine months at five days a week; an extension is available only for a defined handover risk and cannot become open-ended cover.
• Interim decision rights apply to recovery sequencing, evidence gates, work allocation and filing recommendations; statutory signatures and settlements remain reserved.
• Legal-entity redesign, transaction structuring, indirect-tax remediation and permanent recruitment are outside scope and will be logged, not absorbed.
• On-site presence in Mumbai is required through the diagnostic and first recovered filing wave, with travel undertaken only against an approved obligations need.
• Completion occurs when the priority backlog is resolved, controls are evidenced and the permanent successor passes two observed filing and notice-governance cycles.

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 6 October 2026. Mandate reference TAX-INT-2026-BOM-02.