The country of Tarafina might not exist, but a team of five ASU students won $1,000 and a chance to compete in Washington, D.C., by adjusting its tax codes on Friday.
ASU was one of about 40 schools to participate in the sixth annual PricewaterhouseCoopers xTax competition, said Harriet MacCracken, an ASU accounting lecturer who oversees the competition.
MacCracken said 10 five-person teams from ASU participated in the competition.
“Preparing for the competition is a two-week process,” she said. “And students are willing to go above and beyond their normal workload for it.”
The teams were given an imaginary country with a candidate who’s running for president and tasked with adjusting tax policies according to that candidate’s priorities.
The teams tweaked the tax policies to focus on issues like energy efficiency and the environment, she said.
Finance sophomore Kyle Curtin, who was on the winning team, said the best part of the competition was the team effort and working together.
“I enjoyed being able to collaborate as a team with ideas, thoughts and opinions and bringing it all together in the end and presenting,” Curtin said.
The second place team also won $1,000, and the third place team received a set of iHome speakers for each of its members, MacCracken said.
Karri Beck, a recruiter for accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the challenge plunges students into the real world.
“The competition is focused on high-level issues designed to test and improve decision-making, the ability to work in teams and persuasive communication skills,” she said.
Beck said a top team will be chosen at each campus by a panel of PricewaterhouseCoopers professionals.
The video of the winning team is submitted to a national selection committee for review, and five national-finalist teams will be selected in December, she said.
“Each of the five national-finalist teams will receive a $10,000 prize and a trip to Washington, D.C., to present their winning case,” Beck said.
The competition provides a unique opportunity for students to experience the public-accounting environment as well as an opportunity for the company to interact with students, she said.
Ben Morin, an economics sophomore on the second-place team, said even though he had to spend a lot of time in meetings, he enjoyed working with his teammates.
“It’s a big commitment, but it’s worth it,” Morin said. “It gets people ready for actual work because this is the kind of thing you have to do when you actually have a job.”
Accounting and finance senior Katie Herzberg, also on the second-place team, agreed that preparing for the competition took a lot of work.
“My least favorite part is the amount of time that is needed to spend on the case over the two-week period,” she said. “This is especially true when having a full-time school schedule and working part-time.”
However, she said the advantages outweighed the amount of work and time spent on preparing.
“It’s a great opportunity for students to get a taste for what their careers will be like since it is a real-world issue that they are trying to solve,” Herzberg said.
Accounting sophomore Craig Sequeira said he enjoyed the competition because it provided a change from his normal routine.
“It’s been a fun opportunity to break the sometimes overwhelming work that comes with the standard semester,” he said.
Reach the reporter at charlsy.panzino@asu.edu.
