Senior Specialist, Payroll Tax & M&A Integration

About the role

Mastercard is seeking a Senior Specialist to lead payroll tax activities throughout mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and business integrations. The role serves as the subject‑matter expert on U.S. and global payroll tax compliance, ensuring accurate employee tax setups and seamless integration into payroll operations.

Key responsibilities

• Conduct payroll tax due diligence on target entities, assessing registrations, compliance status and identifying tax risks.
• Coordinate federal, state, provincial and local tax registrations and manage tax account transitions during M&A events.
• Validate employee tax elections, support payroll vendor implementations and test tax calculations, filings and reporting.
• Partner with Payroll Operations, Corporate Tax, legal and M&A COE teams, leading the payroll tax workstream in integration governance meetings.
• Provide status updates, risk assessments and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Monitor post‑go‑live payroll tax operations, transition ongoing activities to operations teams and capture lessons learned for future playbooks.

Required profile

• Minimum 5 + years of hands‑on payroll tax experience.
• Deep knowledge of U.S. federal tax regulations and state withholding requirements.
• Proven ability to manage complex tax projects across multiple jurisdictions.
• Strong analytical and documentation skills, with experience preparing audit‑ready records.

Required skills

• Payroll tax compliance and registration processes.
• Project management of tax‑related integration initiatives.