A tax guru currently sitting on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has been chosen by the Federal Government to head the tribunal, which sets accounting standards.
Keith Kendall, a tax expert and former barrister, becomes the first lawyer to chair the body that focuses exclusively on the development of the guidance setting out how companies and other entities prepare their financial statements.
The chairman's role also involves engaging with accounting experts from New Zealand on a regular basis as a part of a long-standing trans-Tasman relationship. The AASB chair will also attend periodic meetings of global standard setting authorities chaired by the London-based International Accounting Standards Board.
Kendall replaces former KPMG technical partner Kris Peach on 3 May as the standard setting chief that holds the reins on the process that sets accounting pronouncements.
Peach's immediate predecessor, Kevin Stevenson, was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a senior technical staff member at the International Accounting Standards board and held the position of executive director of the Australian Accounting Research Foundation from 1979 to 1989 in a lengthy career within the profession.
It goes without saying that Kendall comes to the role with some contrasting career experiences when compared with his predecessors. He was a tax partner at Rigby Cooke Lawyers prior to his appointment to the AAT.
His appointment to the latter was reported in a story on the online news site Crikey that pointed to Kendall and many other AAT members having links with the Liberal Party of Australia.
His LinkedIn profile spruiks his role at Rigby Cooke as involving representing "clients at all stages of the tax litigation process, including preparing private binding ruling applications, preparing and lodging objections, preparing submissions during audit, representing clients during information gathering interviews and conducting reviews and appeals in the Tribunals and Courts".
His time at Rigby Cooke was preceded by a stint at the Victorian Bar as a barrister recognised to practice in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. This period went from October 2011 to July 2017 and coincided with his editorship of the Journal of Australian Taxation.
Kendall was an academic at LaTrobe University at senior lecturer level for just over 13 years. During this period he wrote and spoke extensively on taxation matters.
There were also presentations to the Samuel Griffiths Society on tax issues. Kendall spoke in 2012 on 'the case for a state income tax' and on 'comparative federal income tax' in 2013. Two opinion pieces have also appeared under his name in The Age offering a view on why a carbon tax is better than an emission trading scheme (13 August 2008) as well as the finnicky bits of legal manoeuvring that exist in Australia's federal system of government (29 December 2012).
The new accounting chief has also appeared at what is considered the premier libertarian conference in Australia in 2015, which included heavyweights from the Liberal Party of Australia, a range of academics and representatives from conservative think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs.
One of the convenors of the event, Tim Andrews, posted a registration reminder on his Facebook page on 31 March 2015 that noted "speakers include Liberal MPs Alex Hawke and Louise Staley, Senator David Leyonhjelm, Academics Professors Sinclair Davidson, Jim Allan, and Dr Keith Kendall". Current One Nation NSW leader Mark Latham, and Sky News contributor Terry Barnes were also in attendance at the gig.