Johan van der Walt
F +27 (0)11 562 1277
johan.vanderwalt@dlacdh.com
Johannesburg
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Summary Profile
Johan van der Walt is a director of our Tax practice.
Career
Johan was previously a senior analyst at the Department of Bank Supervision of the South African Reserve Bank (SARS) (1992 to 1995). He then became senior manager: Corporate Finance and subsequently company secretary at Unibank, which later became the Unifer group, eventually acquired by ABSA. (1995 to 1998). Johan subsequently joined SARS in March 1998 as a tax advocate (later senior tax advocate) representing the Commissioner in tax appeals before the Tax Court. In 2000 he was appointed assistant general manager: Litigation. In this role he managed SARS' overall tax litigation division. In 2004 he moved into a senior specialist role. He was closely involved in the analysis of structured finance transactions, the application of the general anti-avoidance provisions and the settlement negotiations that followed. During 2008 he took a brief sabbatical and worked in the Aggressive Tax Planning unit of the Australian Tax Office in Canberra. Before leaving SARS, Johan was instrumental in launching and rolling out the 2010 Voluntary Disclosure Program. Johan joined Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr as a director in June 2011.
Education
- B Comm LLB cum laude, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (Port Elizabeth)
- Cert. (Tax), University of South Africa (UNISA)
- Advanced LLM (Tax), University of Pretoria
- Hdip (International Tax) cum laude, University of Johannesburg
- Year of admission as an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa: 1983
Memberships
Law Society of the Northern Provinces
Experience
- Having previously spent 13 years with SARS, Johan has extensive experience regarding tax litigation and the alternative resolution dispute process.
- He has been closely involved in the settlement of numerous complex, high-value tax disputes.
- For purposes of his LLM dissertation Johan did an in-depth analysis of the old section 103 (later substituted by the GAAR in section 80A-L). He therefore has significant experience regarding the use and application by SARS of the general anti-avoidance provisions.