Prof. Dr Shaun Parsons is a Chartered Accountant (South Africa) and spent several years as an audit manager in both South Africa and the United Kingdom. His research focuses on the tax consequences of financial instruments and emerging technologies and, in particular, the taxation of cryptoassets.

Prof. Dr Parsons obtained his PhD from the University of Cape Town. He is an Associate Professor in the College of Accounting at the University of Cape Town and has 13 years’ experience teaching taxation. He is also responsible for overseeing the research portfolio in the College of Accounting. 

Prof. Dr Parsons serves as editor or contributor to a number of academic textbooks on taxation. He has authored a number of journal articles on cryptoassets, such as “What’s in a name?: The classification of ‘interest’ on cryptoassets in South Africa and beyond” (Intertax 50:6/7, Wolters Kluwer, 2022). His book Taxing Crypto-Asset Transactions: Foundations for a Globally Coordinated Approach was published in 2023 in IBFD’s Doctoral Series.