Tax & Finance Assistant

At Smart, our mission is to transform retirement, savings and financial wellbeing, across all generations, around the world.

THE ROLE

We are seeking a motivated and detail-oriented Tax & Finance Assistant to join our growing finance team. This is an excellent opportunity for a recent graduate, school leaver, or early-career professional who is keen to develop specialist tax expertise, accounting experience, valuable exposure to payroll and wider financial operations.

We offer full study support towards a recognised professional qualification, along with hands-on training, mentoring from experienced tax and finance professionals, and the opportunity to work across a broad range of UK and international matters.

Reporting to the in-house Tax Manager, with regular rotation to support the wider Financial Operations team, this role is based in London with hybrid working available.

Key responsibilities:

Tax

• Working closely with the Tax Manager, you will support a variety of tax compliance and advisory activities, including:

• Maintaining the global tax compliance calendar to help ensure all filing deadlines and regulatory requirements are met.

• Assisting with the preparation and review of UK VAT returns.

• Supporting the preparation and submission of corporation tax returns and other tax filings.

• Assisting with the UK Group's R&D tax relief claim process.

• Building relationships with external tax advisers and coordinating information requests.

• Assisting with tax audits and preparing supporting documentation.

• Maintaining tax controls and compliance procedures.

• Supporting tax-related correspondence and responding to routine enquiries.

• Assisting with tax reporting and balance sheet reconciliations.

• Working with colleagues across Finance to improve tax processes, controls and reporting accuracy.

• Contributing ideas to improve efficiency, controls and ways of working.

Finance

Alongside your tax responsibilities, you will gain valuable experience across key finance operations, including payroll, with responsibilities such as:

• Posting of journals within your areas of responsibility.

• Taking ownership of key balance sheet reconciliations within your areas of responsibility.

• Supporting with the month end procedures.

• Assisting with internal and external audits as required.

• Assisting with the operation of UK and international payrolls.

• Liaising with external payroll providers to coordinate payroll inputs, outputs and queries.

• Supporting payroll-related tax reporting, including PAYE and employee benefits.

• Assisting with HMRC reconciliations and correspondence.

• Helping to maintain pension administration processes and responding to employee queries.

• Supporting payroll system improvements and process enhancements.

• Working with HR and Finance teams to ensure payroll information is accurate and up to date.

• Gaining exposure to accounting processes and wider financial operations across the business, with increasing responsibility and development opportunities as you progress.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

The skills, experience, and aptitudes we are looking for are listed below but please don’t be discouraged from applying if you don’t meet every single one of these criteria – having a ‘can do’ attitude is sometimes more important than being able to tick every box:

• Educated to A-Level (or equivalent)

• Strong numerical and analytical skills with excellent attention to detail Comment start Comment end

• Ability to work accurately with confidential and sensitive information

• Good written and verbal communication skills

• Comfortable using Microsoft Office

WHO WE ARE

We work in partnerships with governments and financial institutions in the UK and internationally. Our cloud-native digital platform is revolutionising how people around the world think about, and save for, their retirement.

At heart, we’re a financial technology business. What we do is all about innovation, and using the power of digital change to put the customer first. Our Engineers will tell you that working at Smart gives you the opportunity to play your part in developing world-class technological solutions, working with – and learning from – like-minded people.

You’ll also find that, across our business, our colleagues love Smart’s culture, and how what we do means better financial outcomes for savers. That feels worthwhile, and it means that what we do, collectively, goes way beyond the nine to five of a typical working day.

Don’t just take our word for it – you can see what our colleagues say about working at Smart on LinkedIn Life and Glassdoor.

BENEFITS

At Smart, one of the eight principles we work to is “We want happy and good people in our team”. We created a list of benefits that helps us achieve this goal:

• 25 days’ holiday per year, increasing with length of service.

• £500 annual training budget to spend on your professional development

• Extensive private healthcare, including dental, eyecare and EAP

• Enhanced sick leave (three months’ pay per year)

• Enhanced maternity and paternity (maternity – 6 months fully paid/paternity – 3 weeks fully paid)

• Death in service insurance cover

• Fully-paid five-week sabbatical after five years of employment

• In office wellbeing, such as manicures, massages and barbers.

• Smart employees also enjoy a 50% discount on orders from our sister company Arena Flowers, Britain's most ethical florist. They offer unique hand-tied bouquets, luxury flowers, letterbox flowers, plants and gifts to spend on friends and loved ones or even for yourself.

At Smart, we are committed to creating an inclusive and equitable workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered to do their best work.

We believe that diverse perspectives help us lead the way in transforming retirement, savings, and financial wellbeing. We welcome differences in background, experience, thinking, and identity, and we recognise that innovation is strongest when it is built on inclusion and fairness. We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and experiences and do not discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic.

If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process or in the workplace, we encourage you to let us know - we are committed to supporting you.

We think Smart is an awesome place to work. If it sounds like somewhere you’d like to work, too, and if you’re ready to play your part in our continued success in the future, then naturally we’d love to meet you.