Tax Director, Provision & Compliance

About the role

Anthropic's Tax team is hiring a Tax Director to own the company's global income tax provision and US income tax compliance function. This is a core operational leadership role: you will run the quarterly and annual ASC 740 close, manage the co-sourced compliance program, and build the processes, controls, and team that keep both scaling with the company.

What makes this seat unusual is what flows through it. Anthropic is deploying capital into compute and data center infrastructure at a scale and pace with few precedents, alongside an active program of acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic investments — and every one of those transactions lands in the provision and the returns. We prefer candidates who bring familiarity and hands-on experience with complex M&A and infrastructure transactions on top of the core provision and compliance skill set: someone who can own the tax purchase price allocation workpapers, write the technical memo on a novel financing or lease structure, and then carry that answer correctly through the ASC 740 close and into the compliance workstream.

Key responsibilities

• Own the quarterly and annual worldwide income tax provision: current and deferred computations, effective tax rate reconciliation, deferred tax inventory and valuation allowance assessments, stock-based compensation, uncertain tax positions, and return-to-provision true-ups
• Own the tax journal entries, account reconciliations, income tax footnote and disclosures, and the supporting workpapers and SOX controls; manage the financial statement audit relationship with our Big 4 auditors
• Coordinate the international components of the provision with the team and outside advisors, and drive continuous improvement in close speed and quality
• Manage the US federal and state income tax compliance program, working with our co-sourced Big 4 providers: returns, estimated payments and extensions, elections and disclosures, and the compliance calendar
• Own cash tax forecasting and support tax authority notices, examinations, and audit defense
• Drive automation and tax technology adoption across the provision and compliance processes, including AI tooling
• Own tax purchase price allocation workpapers for acquisitions: taxable vs. nontaxable characterization, ASC 805 opening balance sheet deferred taxes, goodwill component analysis, and reconciliation to the tax basis balance sheet — plus tax diligence, structuring, and integration (reorganization qualification, equity compensation in deals, Section 382, transaction costs, stub period returns)
• Analyze data center and compute infrastructure arrangements — lease classification, sale-leasebacks, Section 467 rent schedules, build-out cost recovery — and the financing structures around them: debt vs. equity characterization, prepayments, vendor financing, warrants and equity instruments in commercial agreements, and joint venture formations and buyouts
• Prepare and review technical memos documenting positions for auditors and leadership, and model the cash tax and effective tax rate consequences of proposed structures for Corp Dev, Finance, and Legal while deals are being negotiated
• Mentor and develop tax team members and help build the function as the company grows
• Manage outside advisors on opinions, studies, and valuations, and own those budgets and relationships

Minimum qualifications

• Have substantial experience managing a corporate tax function in the multinational software and technology industry, including hands-on experience running the income tax provision and compliance processes, with a combination of Big 4 public accounting and in-house tax department experience
• Have owned the full ASC 740 provision cycle at a multinational company — not just reviewed pieces of it — including deferred taxes, valuation allowance judgments, uncertain tax positions, footnote and disclosures, SOX controls, and auditor management
• Have managed a US federal and state income tax compliance program at scale, including co-sourced arrangements with Big 4 providers
• Bring familiarity and hands-on experience with complex M&A transactions — tax purchase price allocations, ASC 805 opening balance sheet accounting, diligence and structuring — and ideally experience with infrastructure leases, build-outs, and the financing arrangements behind them
• Write clear, well-organized technical memos that hold up with Big 4 auditors, and can explain the same issue in plain terms to non-tax partners
• Hold a CPA; a Master's in Taxation or LLM is a plus
• Thrive on novel fact patterns and ambiguity, and default to building the workpaper and writing the position down rather than waiting for a template

Preferred qualifications

• Familiarity and experience with data center or similar capital-intensive infrastructure transactions — hyperscaler-scale compute, energy, or telecom deals, project finance, or joint venture structures
• Experience analyzing warrants, convertible instruments, or other equity components embedded in commercial and supply agreements, and debt-equity analysis for intercompany and third-party financing
• An interest in applying AI tools to tax workflows