Monash Adds Taxation Expert to its Ranks

Professor Jeyapalan

Professor Jeyapalan Kasipillai, a senior tax academician and council member of the Malaysian Institute of Taxation, has been appointed as a Professor and Chair of Malaysian Business at Monash University Malaysia's School of Business.  Jeyapalan is also the Director of the Malaysian Business unit and he will take a leading role in the sustained development of the unit and business education at the School of Business.

He will lead multi-disciplinary academic initiatives related to Malaysian business and develop productive partnerships and relationships that extend the Monash contribution to the region.

At the School of Business, Jeyapalan heads the Work Placement Programme which is carried out in collaboration with Certified Practising Accountants (CPA) Australia.  The tax expert was formerly at Universiti Utara Malaysia, where he was the founding director of the Institute of Taxation Research and later Deputy Dean.  He currently has several PhD students in areas like accounting education, financial accounting, tax compliance and Islamic taxation.

Aside from being a council member of the Malaysian Institute of Taxation, Jeyapalan is also chairman of its examination committee and serves on the Research & Publication and Education & Training committees.  He has also served on the education and training arena of the Malaysian Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (MAICSA) and Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (MICPA).  Professor Jeyapalan is also a fellow member of the UK Chartered Institute of Secretaries and a tax consultant to the Multimedia Development Corporation.

Prior to joining the academic world, Jeyapalan worked with the Inland Revenue Board for over 15 years.  He completed his doctoral thesis at the University of New England, Australia, and master's degree at the University of Stirling, Scotland.  Upon graduating from University Malaya in 1974, he joined the New Straits Times as a journalist.  The following year, he joined the then Inland Revenue Department.  During this time, Professor Jeyapalan also taught taxation courses on a part-time basis at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and lectured in advanced taxation at University Malaya.  He worked his way up to the position of Assistant Director for Tax Investigations, before leaving to join Universiti Utara Malaysia as a full time lecturer in 1991.

An active writer and contributor to discussions on taxation, Jeyapalan wrote a fortnightly column in the Star newspaper on Taxation Matters in 2002/2003.  He was also previously the chief editor of the Malaysian Management Journal, an academic publication published by UUM for several years, as well as consulting editor for the "Malaysian Tax Reporter".

He presently serves on the editorial committees of Accountants Today, a publication by the Malaysian Institute of Accountants and e-Journal of Tax Research, a publication of the Australian Taxation Studies Programme at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

In 2003, Jeyapalan was also appointed by Tax Analysts, a US-based non-profit organisation that monitors and supports the development of taxation, to be its official correspondent for Malaysia.  Professor Jeyapalan has authored eight books on taxation and published over 50 refereed articles in local and international journals.  He has also presented over 30 research papers at seminars and conferences in places like Armidale, Beijing, Canberra, Honolulu, Kyoto, Singapore, Sydney and Taipei.  In the year 2000, Dr Jeyapalan was given the Best Researcher Award and in the following year, was presented with an Excellent Service Award by the Vice-Chancellor of UUM.