BYU Accounting Teams Advance to National Tax Competition

Left to right: Ryan Thorpe, Lauren Inouye, Justin Metcalf and Paige Peterson.
Left to right: Derek Welling, Holly Barlow, Derek Judi and Nicholas Tobler.

PROVO, Utah — Nov 14, 2007 — Two Marriott School accounting teams have been selected as undergraduate and graduate division finalists for the 2007 Deloitte Tax Case Study National Competition to be held in Orlando, Fla. on Nov. 16-18.

The BYU undergraduate team competed with 27 other universities, and the graduate team was in a division of 21 universities. Teams had five hours to strategically solve tax problems for a new business venture using only the Internal Revenue Code and Treasury Regulations as references.

“The competition tests students on how well they can understand tax issues and use the tax law to solve those issues,” says accounting professor Robert Gardner, one of the team advisors. “BYU students do very well because they have a strong intellectual capacity, work hard to learn tax information and work well as a team.”

The advancing undergraduate team is composed of Lauren Inouye, from Herdon, Va.; Justin Metcalf, from Joplin, Mo.; Paige Peterson, from Alberta, Canada; and Ryan Thorpe, from Mansfield, Texas. The graduate team members are Holly Barlow, from Sandy, Utah; Derek Judi, from Castle Dale, Utah; Nicholas Tobler, from Tempe, Ariz; and Derek Welling, from Corona, Calif. Professor Gardner was the undergraduate team advisor with Brian Spilker as the graduate advisor.

Only six teams in each division advanced to the national competition, which is sponsored by the Deloitte Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports accounting, business and related fields of study.

“This competition increases awareness of the leading tax accounting programs,” says Janet Butchko, a Deloitte Foundation competition representative. “Students in this competition are certainly at the top of their field.”

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems and entrepreneurship. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.