The 2017 Taxation honours class went to the Du Plooy Dairy Farm in Kaalfontein, east of Pretoria, on 25 May 2017 as part of their farming operations learning area. The purpose of the trip was to provide the students with practical experience of how a farm works on a day-to-day basis and how this affects the tax calculation at the end of the year assessment.

The South African Institute of Tax Practitioners (SAIT) was also there to document the trip and include it in the next edition of the TaxTalk publication. The students were accompanied by Prof Theuns Steyn, Head of the Department of Taxation, Ms Juanita Venter, the subject-responsible lecturer of the BCom (Hons) Taxation class, as well as Mses Noma Bafana and Jade Els, both academic trainees.

The students had to complete an assignment after the trip, discussing the value added tax (VAT), capital gains tax (CGT) and income tax consequences of the farm and the risks that the farm faces. The feedback from the students was extremely positive, mentioning that the visit to the farm was a wonderful practical experience and they hope to have similar academic trips during the rest of the year. The students even named one of the new-born pigs Mr TP (tax practitioner).