Pair of teams capture top honors in PwC Challenge competition

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Spears School of Business recently hosted the PwC Challenge competition at Oklahoma State University for the second year. A total of 10 teams and 44 students competed for two prizes of $1,000.

The PwC Challenge is a preliminary competition to select a team that could represent OSU in the national competition in Washington, D.C., in January.

The participants had two weeks to determine a solution to a tax case they were given on Sept. 26. They presented their results to a panel of PwC judges on Oct. 10.

The team Bad Assets won first place with a $1,000 prize and a chance to be considered for the national competition. Team members include Beau Fraley, Molly Robben, Brett Humphrey, Brittney Pugh and Megan Montgomery.

Team W-4 took second place. Team members Jeff Henry, Justin Kanipe, Kevin Lundy and Erin Robertson will split the $1,000 prize. All 44 students received iTunes gift cards for participating.

Monika Turek, instructor for taxation at the Spears School of Business, is pleased with the challenge and hopes it will attract students to accounting.

“The competition is created to encourage young students in the business school to consider accounting as a major,” Turek said. “It gives students a different side of accounting. It’s all about communication and communicating results.”

OSU is the defending national champion as The Interns, a team comprised of five accounting students, took the top prize in the xTAX (short for Extreme Tax) category this past January. The five students split a cash prize of $10,000 for their selection to the national competition in Washington, D.C., and each received automatic internships with PricewaterhouseCoopers for winning first place.

The team Bad Assets will be notified in late November if they will represent OSU in the national competition.

For more information about the PwC Challenge contact Monika Turek at monika.turek@okstate.edu or (405) 744-5118.