Academic Expert Panel
Professor Michael Dirkis
University of Sydney
Dr Michael Dirkis is a noted researcher, having authored and co-authored over 680 publications and papers. He has been engaged with taxation law for over 40 years through his roles within the academy, the Australian Taxation Office, and the private sector. From May 1999 until October 2009 he was, as Senior Tax Counsel for the Tax Institute, in the forefront of the all major tax reform and taxation administration reforms through participation in key Australian governmental consultative forums conducted by the Treasury, Australian Taxation Office, the Board of Taxation, the Inspector General of Taxation and the Australian National Audit Office and appearing before numerous Parliamentary committees. From 2005 to 2008 he represented the Asia-Oceania Tax Consultants’ Association as an observer at four meetings of Study Group on Asian Tax Administration and Research (SGATAR).
Since his appointment as Professor of Taxation Law at the University of Sydney Law School in 2009 he has continued his involvement in tax policy development as a member of the Australian Treasury’s Tax Treaties Advisory Panel and his continuing roles as a member of the Taxation Committee of the Law Council of Australia and involvement in a number of Tax Institute tax technical committees. He was awarded the Australasian Tax Teachers Association’s Graham Hill medal in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to the teaching of taxation law and policy” on 21 January 2010 and awarded life membership of the Australasian Tax Teachers Association on 18 January 2018.
Professor Craig Elliffe
Professor Craig Elliffe is recognised as a leading authority on global tax regimes and highly digitalised multinational organisations. His book, Taxing the Digital Economy: Policy, Theory and Practice (CUP), revealed and analysed the challenges involved in keeping up with these businesses and proposed new solutions. Related outputs include three articles published in key journals, one of which was shortlisted for the Frans Vanistendael International Tax Publication Awards, as well as an edited book, “International Tax at the Crossroads”. This research was a University of Auckland Research Excellence Medal-winning project and culminated in a Doctor of Laws from the University of Otago in 2024.
Another book, International and Cross-Border Taxation, won the JF Northey prize for the best legal book published in New Zealand in 2015. It has received international and domestic academic acclaim and is frequently cited in New Zealand court decisions. As a result of this book and other articles, he was awarded a PhD in law from the University of Cambridge for research contributions in international tax law.
He is known for his work on the interpretation of tax treaties. His article The Meaning of the Principal Purpose Test: One Ring to Bind Them All? was shortlisted in the Frans Vanistendael awards, while another won an award for the best tax research paper in Australasia. Craig was the first New Zealander appointed to the Permanent Scientific Committee of the International Fiscal Association and as a general reporter on a worldwide research topic of Good Faith in Domestic and International Tax Law.
Craig is acknowledged as an expert on the relationship between international and domestic tax law. He has written papers and chapters for prestigious academic texts, including the Oxford University Press International Taxation Law Handbook. Three of his articles, Preventing Unacceptable Tax Treaty Overrides, The Lesser of Two Evils: Double Tax Treaty Override or Treaty Abuse? and The Quiet Evolution in International Tax: Domestic Law and Double Taxation, were shortlisted among the six finalists of the Frans Vanistendael awards.
He has also written pivotal pieces on New Zealand’s general anti-avoidance rules, such as Designing a Powerful General Anti-Avoidance Rule: Reflections on the New Zealand Experience. These articles have been extensively cited by the New Zealand Supreme Court and led to an invitation to speak at the United Kingdom’s conference on reform and introduction of their anti-avoidance tax law.
Lastly, Craig has influenced discussions about contemporary domestic tax policy reform via articles such as Building a Better Bridge: The Case for Taxing Capital Gains in New Zealand. This work culminated in his membership in the New Zealand government’s Tax Working Group in 2018/2019 (chaired by Michael Cullen). He argued for extending the New Zealand tax base to extend taxation to capital income (gains) to support the integrity of the broad base low-rate principles and to future-proof the system against an ageing demographic.
Professor Sunita Jogarajan
University of Melbourne
Sunita Jogarajan is a Professor at Melbourne Law School. She specialises in teaching and researching Australian and international tax law.
Sunita’s specific research interest is in pre-World War II international tax history. Her book, Double Taxation and the League of Nations (Cambridge, 2018) was one of six publications shortlisted for the 2019 Frans Vanistendael Award. The book has been reviewed in Intertax, Australian Tax Review and the Canadian Tax Journal. Sunita has also published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, British Tax Review and the World Tax Journal. She is a regular contributor to the biennial Cambridge Tax History Conference. Sunita has been a visiting fellow at UC Louvain (Louvain Global College of Law) and at the Max Planck Institute (Hugh Ault Fellowship).
Sunita teaches Australian taxation law to non-law undergraduate students and legal research in tax to JD students. She was involved in setting up the MLS Tax Clinic which provides free tax assistance to unrepresented taxpayers. Sunita has previously taught Corporate Tax to MLM and JD students and Legal Method and Reasoning to JD students. She is one of the primary authors of Principles of Taxation Law (ThomsonReuters). Sunita is a previous recipient of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council citation for ‘outstanding contribution to student learning’.
Sunita is a member of the University’s College of Reviewers for peer-review of teaching. She was previously a member of the University’s Teaching and Learning Quality Assurance Committee, Associate Dean (Undergraduate), Co-Director of Studies (Tax and International Tax) and Co-Director of the Tax Group.
Prior to joining Melbourne Law School, Sunita worked at a ‘Big 4’ tax practice in corporate tax and tax policy.
Associate Professor Darren Koh
Singapore University of Social Sciences
Darren Koh graduated top of his class at the University of Buckingham, winning the Maxwell Law Prize for his year, and was called to the Bar in England & Wales. He is also a Chartered Accountant (England and Wales) and a Chartered Tax Adviser (United Kingdom). He embarked on a tax career with PricewaterhouseCoopers in London and KPMG in Hong Kong, and then as in-house counsel in industry with Procter & Gamble. He has also spent 2 years in International Law at the United Nations handling war reparation claims filed against Iraq after the first Gulf War.
He left Procter & Gamble for academia, joining the School of Business of SIM University (now the Singapore University of Social Sciences) as firstly as Head of Area – Taxation and Business Law, and is now the Vice-Dean of the School of Law as well as the Head of Programme – Master of Taxation.
He is a Board member of the Tax Academy of Singapore and was a member of the Income Tax Board of Review, a tribunal hearing tax appeals. He is the one of the editors of The Law and Practice of Singapore Income Tax 3rd edition, having contributed to the earlier 2 editions.
Darren has a keen interest in international taxation, and in particular, in the field of transfer pricing and tax efficient supply-change structuring. He has a keener in interest in education and training and is always looking for ways to convince people that tax is not boring!
Professor Rick Krever
University of Western Australia
Rick Krever is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia and an International Research Fellow, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, Oxford, U.K. He is a leading international tax scholar with a wide range of books and journal publications. He is well known in international tax circles. He was formerly a member of the Permanent Scientific Committee (PSC) of the International Fiscal Association (IFA) and has provided tax law and policy assistance to a number of international organizations, including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations. Professor Krever has been seconded to both the Australian Treasury and the Australian Taxation Office and has been appointed to a number of tax law reviews in Australia and in other countries, including reviews of the taxation of foreign-source income, capital gains tax, and business tax.
Professor Li Na
East China University of Political Science and Law
Professor Li obtained an LLB from Fudan University in China in 2001, an LLM in tax law from Boston University in the United States in 2009, and a PhD from Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria in 2015. Her research areas are Chinese tax law and international tax law. She has published 60+ academic papers in Chinese journals, English journals, and book chapters, and she has published two books in English, one book in Chinese, and has translated two books from English into Chinese. She is also both a Chinese lawyer and a US (New York State) lawyer, practicing in cross-border investment and international taxation.
Associate Professor Stephen Phua
National University of Singapore
Stephen Phua teaches Income Tax, Goods and Services Tax, Corporate Taxation, International Tax and Business & Finance for Lawyers in the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore where he also serves as Tax Director, EW Barker Centre for Law and Business.
He was a visiting scholar/professor to several leading universities in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Switzerland and the USA. He served as a member for more than a decade on each one of the three tax tribunals in Singapore (Income Tax Board of Review, Goods and Services Tax Board of Review and Valuation Review Board). He was reappointed as a member of the Income Tax Board of Review in 2015. Currently, he is a senior consultant for taxation laws in a law firm in Singapore.
He has delivered papers in many international conferences and published articles in refereed journals and chapters in books. He is the Editor of 2 books: “Recent Developments in Financial Regulation and Capital Markets” (2003) and “Excise Taxation in Asia” (2007).
Associate Professor Simon Poh
National University of Singapore
Simon Poh is currently Associate Professor (Practice) at the Accounting Department of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School where he teaches taxation and advanced taxation courses. He recently won the NUS Business School Teaching Excellence Award every year from 2020 to 2025.
Outside the academia, Simon has been a distinguished tax professional both in Singapore and the region, with more than three decades of experience in tax compliance and tax advisory work in the areas of corporate tax, individual income tax and GST. This includes 9 years of experience with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, 3 years with reputable regional multinational corporations and more than 16 years with top international accounting firms. His extensive experience includes GST tax advisory and risk management, international tax planning, transfer pricing, corporate restructuring, business acquisitions and mergers, tax due diligence reviews, expatriate tax planning, and advising clients on the tax implications of both inbound and outbound investments. Simon continues to be active in professional tax-related work outside his teaching responsibilities.
Simon served as a Board Member of SIATP from January 2013 to March 2020. SIATP was renamed Singapore Chartered Tax Professionals Limited (SCTP) from April 2020. At SIATP/SCTP, he served as Chairman of the SME Tax Committee from January 2012 to December 2022. In January 2023, he stepped down from the SME Tax Committee to join the Tax and Levies Committee within SCTP. Since 2021, he was appointed as a Member of the Income Tax Board of Review, an administrative tribunal established for the purpose of hearing appeals against income tax assessments made by the Comptroller of Income Tax. He currently serves as an Independent Director in a non-profit organisation since March 2023 and also chairs its Audit and Risk Committee since May 2024. Simon is the author of "Taxation in Singapore" which was first published in 2008. The latest edition of this eBook was published in July 2024.
Besides speaking at numerous external tax seminars and conducting regular tax workshops for professional bodies like ISCA and ACCA, Simon is a regular contributor to local and foreign media and professional accounting journals on current taxation issues.
Professor Kerrie Sadiq
Queensland University of Technology
Professor Kerrie Sadiq, an internationally recognised tax law scholar and academic, is Professor of Taxation at the QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the University of Queensland, a Master of Laws from QUT, and a PhD from Deakin University.
Professor Sadiq's research focuses on international taxation, tax expenditures, and capital gains tax. Most recently, she has made significant contributions to discussions on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), transfer pricing, and the OECD’s international tax initiatives. Her work includes scholarly publications, co-authored textbooks, and editorial leadership as co-editor of the Australian Tax Review, a leading academic journal in the field. Professor Sadiq has held visiting academic appointments at numerous international universities including Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria), University of Pretoria (South Africa), University of Canterbury (New Zealand), and University of Western Ontario (Canada).
In recognition of her expertise, Professor Sadiq was awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship (2022–2026) to address tax base erosion caused by profit shifting. Beyond academia, Professor Sadiq contributes to public discourse on tax policy and in 2023 was appointed to the Tax Practitioners Board, the national body responsible for regulating tax practitioners in Australia. She is also a Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA), a Chartered Accountant (CA), a Certified Practising Accountant (CPA), and a Graduate of the institute of Company Directors (GAICD). Her career reflects a commitment to advancing tax law scholarship and influencing policy both nationally and internationally.
Professor Adrian Sawyer
University of Canterbury
Dr Adrian Sawyer is Professor of Taxation at the University of Canterbury (UC) in New Zealand and Extraordinary Professor at the University of South Africa. He holds an SJD from the University of Virginia, and MCom(Hons), BCom and LLB degrees from UC. He is a FCA (CA-ANZ), FCPA (CPA Australia), and Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court (NZ). Adrian is chair of the editors of the New Zealand Journal of Taxation Law and Policy. His research interests include tax administration and compliance, tax policy, taxpayers’ rights, and international taxation.
Mr Sam Sim
Tax Analysts
Mr Sim is passionate in international taxation and had previously consulted as expert for the United Nations, World Bank and Asia Development Bank. He combines academia having served as senior advisor to Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) Global Tax Policy Centre with books published with Walter Kluwer CCH, Lexis-Nexis, Bloomberg BNA and IBFD and practical industry experience, having served as Regional Vice-President (Europe, Middle-East, Africa, Asia and Latin America) of Tax Executive Institute and having led global teams and regional teams at a European FTSE 100 and Fortune 100 US Technology MNE. Mr Sim had previously practised as a tax attorney in New York and has graduate degrees in Taxation (NYU), Economics (Cantab) and Professional Accounting (SMU).
Professor Miranda Stewart
University of Melbourne / New York University
Prof Dr Miranda Stewart (LLD) is a Professor specialising in taxation law and policy at the University of Melbourne Law School, Australia and Visiting Professor of Tax Law and Director of the International Tax Program at New York University School of Law, US. Miranda is also an Honorary Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University. Miranda’s research focuses on the resilience, effectiveness and fairness of tax systems. She has published, advised and taught on a wide range of tax topics and in 2024 was a visiting fellow at the Australian Department of the Treasury. Miranda’s most recent book is Tax and Government in the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press). Miranda has been the Vice-Chair of the International Fiscal Association Permanent Scientific Committee and is President of the 78th IFA Annual Congress in Melbourne, 18-22 October 2026.
https://law.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/miranda-stewart
https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.overview&personid=62321
Professor John Vella
University of Oxford
John Vella is Professor of Law at the University of Oxford. He is also Director (Law) of the Centre for Business Taxation at the Saïd Business School, a founding Director of the Oxford MSc in Taxation, and a Fellow of Harris Manchester College.
John researches and teaches on various aspects of tax law and policy. In recent years his research has primarily focused on the taxation of multinationals, including in the co-authored book Taxing Profit in a Global Economy that was published by OUP in 2021. Other recent research has covered financial sector taxation, tax avoidance and tax administration. He has given evidence on these issues on a number of occasions both before UK Parliamentary Committees and Committees of the European Parliament.
John studied law at the University of Malta (BA and LLD) and the University of Cambridge (LLM and PhD). After completing his studies, he moved to Oxford where he has held different posts at the Faculty of Law and the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation. John has been a Visiting Scholar at the International Monetary Fund, a Visiting Professor at Bocconi University and has held visiting research positions at New York University, the University of Sydney and Georgetown University.
Professor Michael Walpole
University of New South Wales
Michael Walpole is a Professor of Taxation Law. Michael’s research interests include tax transfer pricing and GST/VAT and he has contributed to OECD projects on several VAT topics. Michael’s PhD thesis was on the taxation of goodwill and he has undertaken a number of research projects on the taxation of intangible property. He also researches aspects of tax administration and costs of tax compliance as well as tax dispute resolution and the ethics of tax practice.
Michael joined Atax in 1994 from an overseas academic position. Prior to academic life, Michael worked as a Tax Consultant with Ernst & Young, and prior to that he was in private practice as a legal practitioner (solicitor and barrister). He has been awarded the Hill Medal by the Australasian Tax Teachers Association (ATTA) for his contribution to tax teaching and policy and he is a past President of ATTA.
Michael has authored and co-authored several books including "Proposals for the Reform of the Taxation of Goodwill", "Understanding Taxation Law" and "Compliance Cost Control". Michael has also written and presented many papers on his research topics to practitioner and academic audiences in Australia and overseas. He is editor of the Australian Tax Forum (and previously of eJTR and Australian Tax Review) and he is also author and co-author of a number of articles on GST, taxation of intellectual property, tax administration and taxation compliance costs, and taxation of goodwill.
Michael is an International Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Business Tax in the Said Business School, University of Oxford where he has been an Academic Visitor on many occasions.
In 2012, Michael was also a Visiting Professor in the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration at the OECD in Paris. While at the OECD, Michael worked on research projects related to VAT and to tax compliance costs. He continues to participate in OECD projects as a member of the Technical Advisory Group to OECD Working Party 9 on indirect taxes. Currently Michael is actively involved in the UNSW low income Tax Clinic and the research projects associated with the Clinic.
Professor Zhu Yansheng
Xiamen University
Yansheng ZHU is a full professor at the Law School of Xiamen University (XMU). He serves as the Associate Director of the Centre for International Tax Law and Comparative Taxation in XMU, the Director of the China-OECD LLM Programme on Taxation in XMU, and previously served as Deputy Dean of Law School of Xiamen University (2013-2017). He received a Ph.D. in international law from XMU (1999), and was also a Fulbright Scholar at Georgetown University Law Centre (2011-2012). He is a member of the Standing Council of China’s Society of Fiscal Law and a member of the Standing Council of China International Taxation Research Institute. His academic research focuses on international tax law, Chinese tax law and company law. He also has practices as a lawyer in a local law firm, and as an arbitrator in Xiamen Arbitration Commission.
