UW-Madison Team of Accounting Students
Again Makes Finals of Tax Competition

December 10, 2004

A team of accounting students from the UW-Madison School of Business has made the national finals of the PricewaterhouseCoopers xTAX competition. Only five teams out of 165 reached the finals. The xTAX (short for extreme tax) competition is designed to foster interest among students in tax issues and provide exposure to a "real-world" tax case.

For reaching the finals, the Wisconsin team earns a cash prize of at least $10,000. This is the third time in recent years that Wisconsin has been selected as a finalist. The Wisconsin team won first place in the national competition in 2002 and came in second to New York University in 2003.

This years competition took place over two weeks during the fall semester, with more than 800 students competing nationwide. Students prepared a solution that addressed a current tax policy issue and presented their recommendations to a group of PwC partners. A video of the team was then forwarded to PwC national office, where the top five presentations were selected.

In late January, the Wisconsin team will go to Washington, D.C. to again compete for the Alexander Hamilton Trophy at the PricewaterhouseCoopers Washington National Tax office. Judges for that competition have, in the past, included national-level tax partners at PwC, staff from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation and representatives from U.S. Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service.

The 2004 Wisconsin team members are:
Dan Court (5th year Accounting and Information student)
Patrick Morrell (5th year Accounting and Information student)
Amy Hartstern (3rd year Accounting and Information student)
Ashley Muehlbauer (Sophomore)
Mark Murphy (Sophomore)

Accounting Professor Jon Davis and Al Talarczyk are the teams coaches.

More information on the competition is available online.