Accounting students win tax competition

For the second time in three years, a team of accounting students from the School of Business has won a national competition aimed at finding the best solution to a real-world tax policy problem.

The xTAX competition, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers, drew 165 teams of college students from around the nation.

Each of the five members of the team – Dan Court, Patrick Morrell, Amy Hartstern, Ashley Muehlbauer and Mark Murphy – took home more than $3,500 and a small silver Tiffany bowl. The bowls are replicas of the Alexander Hamilton Trophy, which sits in the reception area of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Washington national tax practice.

“Competing in the xTAX competition is a great experience for our accounting students,” says Professor Jon Davis, who was a team coach along with Al Talarczyk, an accounting lecturer. “Testing ourselves against schools across the country and taking first prize gave us the opportunity to show that Wisconsin has top students and a world-class program.”

The fact that each of the students won prize money added to the luster, he says. Wisconsin took first place in the first year of the xTAX competition in 2003 and was a top-five finalist in 2004, losing to New York University.

In the first round of competition, more than 165 teams consisting of 800 students submitted their solution to a current tax policy issue. A video of the each team’s presentation was forwarded to the PricewaterhouseCoopers national office in New York, where the top five presentations were selected.

On Jan. 27-28, the Wisconsin team matched skills against four other finalists – including teams from Brigham Young University, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University and DePaul University – at the PricewaterhouseCoopers Washington, D.C., national tax office. Judges included the firm’s executives and other nationally prominent executives in taxation and business.