Tax Accountant
About The Position
American Life is a cutting-edge, tech-forward life and annuity insurance carrier. As a subsidiary of American Life Financial Partners, LLC—alongside sister companies Seneca Re and 1505 Capital—we combine industry best practices with state-of-the-art, entirely cloud-based digital platforms to deliver market-leading retirement solutions. Backed by explosive growth, a solid AM Best B++ financial strength rating, and a commitment to challenging the status quo, we are modernizing insurance operations. Our core operating entity, American Life & Security Corp. (ALSC), is a fast-growing annuity carrier with Assets under Management (AUM) approaching $8 billion and annual sales approaching $1.5 billion driven by our competitive Multi-Year Guarantee Annuity (MYGA) and Fixed Index Annuity (FIA) portfolios. At American Life Financial Partners, LLC, our accounting, and finance infrastructure operates across both Statutory and GAAP reporting frameworks. We are expanding this financial core and seeking a visionary, system-savvy Tax Accountant to spearhead all aspects of state premium tax, annuitant, distribution tax reporting and help the technological transformation to OneSource™ tax software. The Tax Accountant will provide core operational support to the Senior Tax Accounting and Planning Lead. This role focuses on day-to-day corporate tax compliance, monthly data preparation, and backup withholding execution. You will act as a key execution engine during critical system migrations, regulatory filings, and business inquiry resolutions. This position blends foundational insurance tax accounting with modern enterprise cloud data environments.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field.
- 1–3 years of corporate tax, public accounting, or insurance/annuity tax operations experience.
- Foundational knowledge of IRS Form 5498, Form 1099 rules, backup withholding, Form 945 deposit rules, and corporate income tax (ASC 740 / SSAP 101).
- Intermediate to advanced Excel skills; familiarity with Oracle Ledger, Databricks, IRS EFTPS, or information reporting filing platforms is preferred.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills to handle technical tax questions from non-accounting professionals.
- High attention to detail, strong problem-solving skills, and an eagerness to learn cloud-based financial data tools.
- Must be eligible to work in the United States.
Nice To Haves
- Familiarity with Oracle Ledger, Databricks, IRS EFTPS, or information reporting filing platforms is preferred.
Responsibilities
- Own the end-to-end data validation and generation process for IRS Form 5498 (IRA Contribution Information) for Qualified Annuities.
- Verify prior-year December 31 Fair Market Value (FMV) ledger balances against administrative systems for accurate reporting.
- Audit and reconcile rollover, regular contribution, and Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) flags before the annual May 31 filing deadline.
- Process corrected Form 5498 filings stemming from late prior-year agent transactions or administrative adjustments.
- Manage the end-to-end withholding and information reporting lifecycle for Independent Marketing Organizations (IMOs) and independent agents.
- Execute and track backup withholdings for 1099 contractors who fail to provide valid Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINs).
- Oversee data consolidation and validation for the annual generation of Form 1099-NEC and Form 1099-MISC.
- Perform monthly audit checks matching commission ledger payouts against tax withholding accounts.
- Serve as the primary internal resource to answer ad hoc tax questions from agents, IMOs, and customer service teams.
- Provide clear guidance on the taxation of annuity death benefits, including lump-sum payouts vs. systematic distributions.
- Research and address technical queries regarding the taxable gain embedded in full or partial policy surrenders.
- Resolve commission tax disputes, address corrected 1099 requests, and interpret IRS guidelines for the distribution field force.
- Manage and execute weekly Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT) for federal and state tax withholdings.
- Prepare annual Form 945 (Annual Return of Withheld Federal Income Tax) for non-payroll distributions.
- Maintain daily liabilities on Form 945A to match semi-weekly or next-day deposit schedules.
- Track federal income tax withheld from annuitant surrenders, lump-sum distributions, and periodic payments.
- Perform weekly reconciliations between distribution administration platforms and ledger cash accounts.
- Support the end-to-end execution of Federal, State, and Premium tax filings.
- Maintain detailed documentation for internal tax workflows to support robust internal controls.
- Extract and organize accounting data required by corporate Legal, external advisors (Crowe LLP), and affiliate teams.
- Maintain sub-ledgers and schedules for Deferred Tax Assets (DTAs) to support strategic valuation allowance evaluations.
- Assist in calculating the consolidated MWH Federal tax provision under the updated WWH tax-sharing agreement.
- Apply the dynamic tax-sharing protocol to calculate and track provisions across affiliates, including Vermont (VT) Captives and ALSC.
- Prepare workpapers that align with both required reporting standard bases.
- Assist in moving legacy tax provision workflows out of offline Excel models.
- Learn and utilize Oracle Ledger and Databricks to extract data and automate routine tax calculations.
- Validate data integrity between source financial systems and tax software tools.
- Execute tasks within a rigid monthly tax close cadence via Oracle, moving away from quarterly cycles.
- Prepare monthly tax accruals and journal entries accurately and within tight close timelines.
- Perform monthly reconciliations for all tax balance sheet accounts.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
