‘Brilliant’ tax lecturer, writer Matthew Lester, 56, dies
BRILLIANT maverick and Rhodes University professor of tax Matthew Lester has died.
Details of how he died were not available yesterday.
Lester’s friends across the professions and colleagues were shocked yesterday as he was only 56.
Colleague and protégé Richard Poole said: “He was wonderful and an inspiration in my tax studies. He also inspired me to follow a career in academia. He had a wonderful knowledge base, an infectious sense of humour and was highly intelligent.”
Rhodes University vice-chancellor Dr Sizwe Mabizela expressed his condolences on behalf of the university community to Lester’s family, colleagues, friends, graduates and students.
Rhodes Business School director Professor Own Skae described Lester as “a larger-than-life” character.
“He was an extremely dedicated teacher, kind and generous. Notwithstanding the fact that he was one of South Africa’s foremost tax experts, his gift was to explain this in the easiest of terms. Behind all of this was a man deeply committed to social justice.
“We will miss him in many ways, but most of all his ability to make us laugh,” added Skae.
Lester was a chartered accountant who dodged being drafted into the apartheid-era SADF by working at the South African Revenue Services (SARS).
He lectured at the Rhodes Business School where he specialised in the fields of stewardship, governance, taxation and entrepreneurial law, Mabizela said.
In July 2013 Lester was appointed by the minister of finance to the Davis Tax Committee investigating the structure of aspects of the South African tax system.
Rhodes University spokesman Luzuko Jacob said: “During this assignment, he chaired the subcommittees investigating the small- and medium-enterprise sector and estate duty.”
Widely acknowledged as one of the foremost tax experts in South Africa, Lester has written regular articles for the Rhodes Business School website (www.criticalthought.co.za), bizznews.com
and has published other extensive journal articles on corporate governance.
He was one of the most popular columnists in the Sunday Times with his Tax Talk column and thoroughly enjoyed writing for two small Grahamstown community weeklies – The Grahamstown Shoppa and Makana Moon.
He was a lifelong skiboat angler. His boat is called Titan Uranus.
He is survived by a daughter, Jess Lester. —