Senior Advisor, Payroll Tax & Compliance

Senior Advisor, Payroll Tax & Compliance

• Play a key role in strengthening payroll tax compliance and governance across a complex, large-scale Canadian payroll environment.
• Act as a trusted senior SME, leading year-end reporting, audits, reconciliations, and critical knowledge transfer.
• Fixed term role for 18 months and location is Montreal or Salt Lake City

We’re Finding Better Ways™ to provide materials the world needs, now and in the future. Our values – care, courage and curiosity – guide how we work and how we treat each other.

About the role

We are looking for a Senior Advisor, Payroll Tax & Compliance to provide senior-level payroll tax expertise, lead year-end compliance activities, and strengthen governance across payroll, tax, accounting, reconciliation, and regulatory processes.

This is a great opportunity for a strategic, detail-oriented, and highly experienced payroll tax and compliance professional to act as a trusted SME, oversee year-end tax reporting and audits, support the transition of critical responsibilities, and partner with cross-functional stakeholders in a complex, large-scale payroll environment.

Reporting to the Manager, Payroll, and working in a challenging and exciting environment within the Employee Services People Services, you will be:

• Lead payroll tax and year-end activities as a senior subject matter expert, ensuring accuracy, compliance, and strong governance across statutory reporting processes.
• Provide oversight for CRA and MRQ compliance, DAS remittances and reconciliations, CPP, EI, and provincial tax obligations.
• Drive the end-to-end delivery of year-end tax reporting, including T4, T4A, and RL-1 processes, reconciliations, amendments, and sign-off readiness.
• Own and review payroll-to-GL reconciliations and statutory balances, identifying and resolving discrepancies, risks, and process gaps.
• Act as the primary lead for CRA reviews, tax audits, statutory audits, and related regulatory engagements.
• Provide strategic guidance on compliance risks, documentation, remediation actions, and mitigation strategies.
• Lead the structured transition of critical payroll tax responsibilities, documenting key processes, risks, controls, and knowledge-transfer requirements.
• Partner with Finance, Accounting, Payroll Operations, Employment Tax, auditors, and regulators while acting as an escalation point for complex tax and compliance matters.

About you

• A commitment to the safety of yourself and your team
• Deep expertise in Canadian payroll tax, statutory reporting, and compliance frameworks, including CRA and MRQ requirements.
• Strong experience leading year-end payroll tax activities, including T4, T4A, RL-1 reporting, reconciliations, corrections, and sign-off readiness.
• A solid finance or accounting background, with the ability to connect payroll outputs to general ledger reconciliations, statutory balances, and financial statements.
• Proven ability to lead audits, regulatory engagements, compliance reviews, documentation, and remediation activities.
• Experience supporting transitions, knowledge transfer, process documentation, or transformation initiatives in a complex payroll environment.
• Strong judgment, analytical thinking, and the ability to operate with autonomy while partnering effectively with Payroll, Finance, Accounting, auditors, and regulators.
• Fluency in French and English, both written and spoken. Rio Tinto is a global company and the duties of this position may require daily collaboration with colleagues, teams, or partners based outside Quebec

What we offer

Be recognized for your contribution, your thinking and your hard work, and go home knowing you’ve helped the world progress.

• A work environment where safety is always the number one priority
• Career development & education assistance to further your technical or leadership ambitions
• A competitive base salary reflective of your skills and experience with annual incentive program
• Ongoing access to family-friendly health and medical programs, pension and savings plans
• Attractive share ownership plan
• Leave for all of life’s reasons (vacation/annual, paid parental, sick leave)
• Exclusive employee discounts