Three talented candidates were honoured at a cocktail function hosted by leading legal practice, Norton Rose and the South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA) for their exceptional, prize-winning thesis submissions at the fifth annual Tax Thesis Competition 2012.

The winner in the Doctoral category was Theuns Steyn of the University of Pretoria for his thesis titled “A conceptual framework for evaluating the tax burden of individual taxpayers in South Africa.”. His thesis identified the many taxes and imposts, many of them not immediately visible, to which South African taxpayers are subject, and provided a matrix for valuing their impact on taxpayers.

In the Masters category, the winner was Silke Bovijn of the University of Stellenbosch. In the Honours category the winner was Kerrisha Singh of the University of the Witwatersrand.

The awards were made at a cocktail event in Johannesburg attended by representatives of SARS and National Treasury, the participating universities and a number of the country’s tax experts.

Justice Carole Lewis of the Supreme Court of Appeal was the guest speaker. She spoke on the need to interpret and apply any branch of the law, in this context tax law, within the broader body of law and not in isolation.

Judging was undertaken by a team of tax experts from co-sponsors Norton Rose in South Africa and SAIPA with the final adjudication of the shortlisted candidates examined by Advocate Julia Boltar.Advocate Boltar was full of praise for the winners and of the other finalists, who were Tania Mendes of Wits in the Honours, and Elron Haughton of Stellenbosch in the Masters category.
The winners and their supervising academic departments each received an award totalling R66 000.
Andrew Wellsted, director and national head of the tax division at Norton Rose in South Africa commented:
“I am delighted to congratulate the three winners and all the participating universities. The standard of submissions this year continued its upward trajectory and embraced a number of topical issues. The breadth and quality of subjects reflects the aim of ourselves and our co-sponsors, which is to encourage and promote tax research in South Africa.”

Shirley Olsen, chairperson of SAIPA commented: “The entries were of excellent quality. Particularly gratifying was the relevance of most of them to current issues and tax developments. Congratulations to the winners for their submissions, their supervising universities and indeed to all the participants.”