Wisconsin Accounting Students
Win Tax Competition

January 28, 2005

For the second time in three years, a team of accounting students from the UWMadison School of Business has won the PricewaterhouseCoopers xTAX competitiona national competition where teams of college accounting students compete to find the best solution to a real-world tax policy problem.

Each of the five members of the Wisconsin team took home more than $3,500 ($17,500 in total) 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-Madisons name for the second time this year.

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, a lecturer in accounting. 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 took home over $3,500 in 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.

In the first round of competition, more than 165 teams consisting of 800 students across the country submitted their solution to a current tax policy issue. A video of each teams 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 the other four finalists at the PricewaterhouseCoopers Washington National Tax office in Washington, D.C. (Brigham Young University, University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, and DePaul University). Judges included the firms executives and other nationally prominent executives in tax and business.

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