Home > Gazette > February 2007

Wisconsin Accounting Students Win National Tax Competition Yet Again

For the third time in five years, a team of accounting students from the UW-Madison School of Business has won a national case competition. Wisconsin students won the PricewaterhouseCoopers xTAX competition, held in Washington, D.C., the last weekend in January. In the national competition, teams of accounting students offer the best solution to a real-world tax policy problem

Wisconsin also won the competition in 2002 and 2004.

“Competing in the xTAX competition is a great experience for our accounting students” says Professor Jon Davis, who chairs the Department of Accounting and Information Systems and who coached the team along with Al Talarczyk, a lecturer in accounting. “Since the competition requires students to present solutions to difficult tax policy questions, it provides our accounting students with an excellent platform for refining their communication and critical thinking skills.”

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

The Wisconsin team matched skills against the other finalists (Brigham Young University, Syracuse, Notre Dame and California-Berkeley) at the PricewaterhouseCoopers Washington National Tax office in Washington, D.C. Judges included the firm’s executives and other nationally prominent executives in tax and business.

For winning, each student member of the Wisconsin team took home more than $3,000 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, which will be engraved with UW-Madison’s name again this year.

The Wisconsin team members were:

• Ashley Muehlbauer (senior)
• Amy Hartstern (5th year accounting student)
• Dilan Van Ryn (sophomore)
• Luke Farrell (junior)
• Taylor Barrett (sophomore)

Wisconsin accounting students also have a stellar record in another major tax competition. The past two years, a team of Wisconsin accounting students has made it to the national finals (final five) of the Deloitte Tax Case Competition.