Organising Committee

Jennifer is an Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Commerce and Director of the Tax Unit for Fiscal Research at the University of Cape Town. She was previously head of tax in the Department of Accounting and then head of postgraduate tax studies in the Finance and Tax Department at the University of Cape Town. She currently supervises Master’s and PhD students in both South African and International Tax.

Jennifer is a chartered accountant, has an LLM from the University of Cape Town, and is a Chartered Tax Adviser with the South African Institute of Taxation (SAIT). She is a visiting professor on the LLM programme at Vienna University.

Jennifer has published extensively both locally and internationally in books and journals. She is currently a contributing author of Jutas Income Tax (SA), Bloomberg BNA (USA) country portfolios (author of the year 2019) and the Global Tax Treaty Commentaries (GTTC) of the IBFD. She is also a national contributor to the Observatory of Taxpayers Rights of the IBFD.

She is president of the International Fiscal Association (IFA) South Africa Branch, President of the 2024 IFA Congress in Cape Town, and member of the IFA Supervisory Board. She is a member of the European Association of Tax Law Professors and member of the IBFD GTTC and World Tax Journal editorial boards. Jennifer was appointed as professor in Residence at the IBFD in Amsterdam for 2023. She is a serving member as a judge on the Frans Vanistendael Award for International Tax at the IBFD and also a juror for the IBFD GTTC annual university student competitions. In 2024 she was appointed to the board of ADIT.

Johann is Professor in the Department of Commercial Law of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa. He formerly practiced in the field of international taxation with PwC.

Johann received his PhD in law from the University of Cambridge for a thesis developing a theory of integrative tax treaty interpretation. He holds two LLM degrees, one from the University of Cape Town and the other from Leiden University. He obtained B.Com (Law) and LL.B degrees from Stellenbosch University.

He is a member of the Permanent Scientific Committee of the International Fiscal Association (IFA), who is responsible for the scientific programme for the 76th Annual Congress of IFA in Cape Town. He is also Deputy-President of the Congress.

Since 2003, Johann has had an association with the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) in Amsterdam, where in 2019, he took up the Chief Editorship of the Bulletin for International Taxation. He has lectured and tutored at several universities, including the International Tax Centre at Leiden University and the University of Cambridge, and is an academic visitor at the Oxford Institute for European and Comparative Law. He has acted as senior international consultant for the UN Economic Commission for Africa, participated in the tax work of NEPAD on behalf of the African Union, and is consulted by public and private sector organisations across Africa. He is a member of the International Tax Law Committee of the International Law Association (ILA).

Johann has authored more than 70 academic publications including legal reference works, textbooks, edited books, book chapters, journal articles, and case notes. His work on tax treaties has been cited by courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada and the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland.

Anne is a partner in the Tax Practice at Webber Wentzel. Prior to joining Webber Wentzel, she headed up the international tax practice at Deloitte in South Africa.

She is an expert in international tax with extensive experience in both tax advisory and tax dispute resolution work in regard to inbound and outbound investment, mergers and acquisitions, and cross-border trading and financing.

Anne has practical experience working in South Africa and in the UK, specialising in international tax advisory work. Her expertise is regularly recognised by various international research organisations including Chambers Global (Tax), Legal 500 (Tax), Best Lawyers (Tax), and World Tax.

Jerome is a Director in the Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr Inc (CDH) Tax & Exchange Control practice. He specialises in corporate tax, international tax, and tax dispute resolution. He provides tax advice (and fiscal statute interpretation and application) on a wide variety of commercial transactions and business activities, including financing, corporate reorganisations and restructurings, disposals and acquisitions, empowerment transactions, projects and energy, and share incentive schemes. With reference to international tax, Jerome advises various clients on inward/outward investments, tax residency, controlled foreign company rules, double tax treaties, transfer pricing, and other cross-border tax issues.

Jerome’s specialisation includes tax controversy/tax dispute resolution, and he also advises clients on tax incentives, taxation of REITs/property, employees’ tax (PAYE), value-added tax (VAT), and the taxation of trusts.

Jerome is the South Africa Branch Representative and Chair for the Young IFA Network (YIN) and serves on the YIN global committee.

Lisa’s qualifications include LLB, B Comm Honours Tax, and LLM Tax. She is an admitted attorney and conveyancer and a South African Revenue Service (SARS) registered tax practitioner.

Lisa’s experience includes international and domestic corporate re-organisation and restructuring, property tax law, tax advisory, transactional tax (mergers and acquisitions), transfer pricing, tax issues pertaining to Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), Controlled Foreign Company (CFC) navigation, cross-border tax structuring (inbound and outbound investment), structured finance, preference share funding, double taxation agreements (specialising in permanent establishments and place of effective management), capital gains tax, and related fiscal and corporate drafting.

She is knowledgeable about and experienced in the tax legislation of several jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Luxembourg, Malta, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Mauritius, and the United States.

Lisa prepared the technical report on the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action 2: “Neutralise the Effects of Hybrid Mismatch Arrangements” at the invitation of the Davis Tax Committee (DTC) for submission to the then Minister of Finance. All the proposals contained in her technical report were adopted by the DTC in its Interim BEPS Report.

She also prepared the technical report on the OECD BEPS Action 4: “Limit Base Erosion via Interest Deductions and Other Financial Payments”, as well as the technical report on South African Corporate Income Tax: “Group Restructuring”, both at the invitation of the DTC for submission to the then Minister of Finance.

Lisa has served as a member of the Executive Board of the IFA-South Africa Branch for several years. She now works in the financial sector as the Key Individual of a Financial Services Provider.

Leon is a corporate tax director with more than 25 years of experience. He is a Chartered Accountant, holds a Master’s Degree in Tax Law, and currently heads the Group Tax function of the FirstRand Group, a large financial services group listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

De Wet currently occupies the position of Director for the Private Clients practice at AJM, which sees him focussing on deal advisory, group restructuring, and the taxation of cross border interests of Private Clients, all whilst overseeing operational developments in the AJM business.

Amongst other qualifications, he holds a BAcc.LLB degree from Stellenbosch University and is an admitted advocate of the High Court of South Africa (non-practising), a registered Business Restructuring Professional, and a registered Tax Practitioner. De Wet also currently serves as the Secretary-General for the South Africa Branch of the International Fiscal Association. He is a Chartered Tax Adviser with SAIT.

Prior to joining AJM, he worked at PwC’s corporate and international tax team in Cape Town as a Tax Consultant in 2011. In 2014, De Wet joined Imperial Logistics to head up its commercial and legal team with his main focus area being mergers and acquisitions into Africa.

Tracy is the Head of Taxation (post-graduate studies) in the Department of Finance and Tax at the University of Cape Town. She also plays a significant role at the South African Institute of Taxation (SAIT) where she leads the Assessment Development Group and serves on the Assessment Committee, the Education Committee, and the Chartered Tax Advisor (CTA) Committee.

Before her transition to academia, Tracy gained practical experience in corporate tax while working at PwC, and later through working as an independent tax consultant to various firms in South Africa.

Des is a consultant in the Tax Practice at Webber Wentzel. He studied law and tax at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of the Witwatersrand, and Harvard University. For more than 42 years, Des has specialised in all aspects of taxation, including international tax, corporate tax, value-added tax, capital gains tax, and employees’ tax.

His expertise has been recognised by various international research organisations, including Chambers Global. He has also been named one of the top tax consultants in South Africa by the prestigious International Tax Review and was named Lawyer of the Year: Tax in 2010 by Best Lawyers.

Des was also a Member of the Tax Court for a number of years. He is a co-author of Value-Added Tax in South Africa and Broomberg on Tax Strategy and is presently co-editor of Business Tax and Company Law Quarterly.

Des has advised both Margo and Katz Tax Commissions of Inquiry into the Tax Structure of South Africa and was a member of the Ad-hoc VAT Committee of the Davies Tax Committee.

Des is a Member of the Executive Committee of the South Africa Branch of the International Fiscal Association (IFA).

After attaining the BAcc.LLB degree at Stellenbosch University, Albertus continued his postgraduate studies at the Universities of Cape Town and Pretoria, whereafter he joined PwC’s corporate and international tax team. He was thereafter appointed by the Wiese family’s Titan Group as its head of tax, whereafter he established the AJM tax consultancy business. During this period, he also had the opportunity to gather experience as a listed company board member.

Albertus holds the Doctor of Laws qualification, is a chartered accountant, and an admitted advocate of the High Court of South Africa. He is a Chartered Tax Adviser with the South African Institute of Taxation (SAIT).

As a tax consultant, he considers it important to remain academically involved, and in pursuance of this, he regularly publishes articles in academic journals. He has lectured at Stellenbosch University’s MAcc (Tax) course in corporate restructures and tax avoidance since 2014 while also reviewing dissertations for the University of Cape Town. Albertus is also an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Faculty of Law. Albertus was the inaugural chair of the “Young IFA Network” (South Africa), a role which he recently relinquished, and now serves as elected member of the South Africa Branch of the International Fiscal Association. Albertus was also appointed as a Central IFA’s Permanent Scientific Committee member.

He has also acted as a peer reviewer for several publications, including the South African Law Journal, the Tydskrif vir Hedendaagse Romeins-Hollandse Reg, De Jure, and Stellenbosch Law Review.

In November 2022, Albertus was appointed by the President of the Republic of South Africa for a five-year term as a member of the Tax Court bench.