BDO picks Schneider as head of tax in South Africa

International Tax Review is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Garden, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2026

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

BDO picks Schneider as head of tax in South Africa

ferdieschneider100.jpg

Ferdie Schneider will join BDO South Africa as head of tax on July 1.

He was a partner of KPMG from March 2005 until now, specialising in VAT. Before that, he was a partner of Deloitte for more than six years. Between January 1990 and December 1996, he worked in government, first as chief taxation officer of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and then as senior economist in the National Treasury of South Africa.

In the 1990s, Schneider was a member of a government committee on VAT in financial services, which resulted in a widening of the South African VAT net, and in 2010 was a founder, with SARS, of a VAT credit retail focus group, which investigated the VAT implications in that specific sector, looking specifically at VAT apportionment and issues such as securitisation and direct attribution.

He is a member of the insurance VAT committee which is looking into the VAT issues in the insurance industry. He has also worked on VAT legislative changes requiring foreign electronic service providers to register for SA VAT purposes where the law deems consumption to take place in SA.

more across site & shared bottom lb ros

More from across our site

The profession is fundamentally restructuring itself around what tax and accounting work should be, a Thomson Reuters leader told ITR
The big four firm is consolidating 16 entities across the region to create a single 6,000-partner behemoth
Brazil’s tax reform unifies consumption taxes to simplify rules, centralise administration and reduce legal uncertainty
The ever-expansive firm has once again attracted a former ‘big four’ talent to lead the new offering
The amended double taxation avoidance agreement removes France’s most favoured nation status for tax treaty benefits
The levies extended beyond the president’s ‘legitimate reach’, the Supreme Court ruled
While Brazil’s consumption tax overhaul led to a short-term spike in tax advisory demand, we are now in a period of ‘normalisation’ marked by decreased recruitment
The expanded firm will comprise roughly 8,500 employees, including 550 partners; in other news, Paul Hastings and Macfarlanes made senior tax hires
Meanwhile, one expert highlights the importance of separating Venezuela’s tax authority from direct political control after ‘lost decades and isolation’
With PMK 108, Indonesia has upgraded its tax transparency regime for the digital era, focusing on data quality, governance, and cross border exchange rather than expanding regulatory reach
Gift this article