UW-Madison accounting students win national tax competition again

For the third time in five years, a team of accounting students from the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Business has won a national case competition.

Wisconsin students won the PricewaterhouseCoopers xTAX competition, held in Washington, D.C. In the national competition, teams of accounting students offer the best solution to a real-world tax policy problem.

The Wisconsin team members were Ashley Muehlbauer, of West Bend; Amy Hartstern, of Kenosha; Dilan Van Ryn, of Wausau; Luke Farrell, of Freedom; and Taylor Barrett, of Fox Point.

“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 from across the country submitted their solutions to a current tax policy issue.

The Wisconsin team matched skills against the other four finalists from Brigham Young University, Syracuse University, the University of Notre Dame and the University of California, Berkeley.

Each student member of the winning Wisconsin team took home more than $3,000 and a small silver Tiffany and Co. bowl.

Wisconsin also won the competition in 2002 and 2004. Also, for the past two years, a team of Wisconsin accounting students has also made it to the national finals of the Deloitte Tax Case Competition.