In May 2018 Mr Rudi Oosthuizen and Ms Nicola Hlongwane of the Department of Taxation in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences accompanied the 2018 Tax honours students to the 6th Annual SA Institute of Tax Professionals (SAIT) Tax Student Conference.

 

The SAIT Tax Student Conference ensures that higher education students from different academic fields in finance – taxation, law, accounting and commerce – are exposed to the wonderful opportunities and specialisations that exist in the tax world. The conference facilitates career decisions in line with individual skill sets and fields of interest and provides students with maximum networking opportunities with key employers. At the 2018 conference, students had the opportunity to network with SAGE, ENS Africa, Nolands, Deloitte, Moore Stephens, EY, BDO, Tax Ombud, SNG, SARS, Lexis Nexis, Webber Wentzel and Juta.

 

Students at the SAIT Tax Students Conference

 

Meanwhile, Ms Karen Stark of the Department of Taxation attended a workshop as well as a conference in Australia in April 2018. The Validation and Future Directions Workshop in respect of the development and testing of diagnostic tools for assessing tax compliance costs was held at KPMG’s offices in Sydney on 3 and 4 April 2018. The first part of the workshop focussed on discussions of how to resolve specific issues to enhance the design and application of the VAT diagnostic tool. During the second part of the workshop, participants were split into two groups, one for each of corporate income tax and employment taxes, to brainstorm the potential high-level indicators of a diagnostic tool for assessing compliance costs for these taxes. There were 28 participants in the workshop, representing Australia, New Zealand, Qatar, Indonesia, Croatia, Malaysia, Greece, Vietnam, UK, China and South Africa.

 

After the workshop, Ms Stark presented a paper at the 13th International Tax Administration Conference, which was held at the Crowne Plaza Coogee Beach in Sydney on 5 and 6 April 2018. The theme of the conference was ‘Tax system integrity in a digital age’ and her paper (co-authored by Prof Sharon Smulders) was titled ‘Compliance costs matter – the case of South African individual taxpayers’. This topic aligns with her PhD studies and the purpose of attending the conference was to obtain feedback that could add value to her thesis.

Karen Stark, Prof Chris Evans and Prof Sharon Smulders