PROVO -- Two teams of Marriott School students entered the nation's largest student tax competition armed with only their pens, pencils and calculators. Seven hours later, they walked away with first- and second-place honors and $30,000 in scholarship money.
Arthur Andersen, the Big Five accounting firm that sponsors the Arthur Andersen Tax Challenge each year, awarded Brigham Young University's undergraduate team $20,000 for its first-place finish. The graduate team finished in second place and received an additional $10,000 in prize money.BYU's Marriott School is the first school to have teams place in both the undergraduate and graduate divisions during the same year.
"These victories serve as reminders that we are educating our students not only to earn degrees but to enter the workplace prepared to deal with real world situations," said Ned C. Hill, dean of the Marriott School. "We are also encouraged that both our undergraduate and graduate students continue to compete very well against students from the nation's other top business schools."
The Marriott School has scored more top-three finishes in the competition's seven-year history than any other school.
The collegiate competition, designed to stimulate student interest in the field of taxation, provides university students studying tax law an opportunity to display the skills they have acquired as well as earn money for their respective programs.
This year, 114 teams from 91 universities entered regional competitions nationwide. From these regional contests, the top 10 graduate and undergraduate teams earned the right to advance to the national competition, held Nov. 21 at the Arthur Andersen Center for Professional Education in St. Charles, Ill.