A team of five accounting students recently won the local round of a national competition focusing on high-level tax issues. The event, Extreme Tax (xTax) is a case competition sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mays students winning the round included graduate students Adrienne Hopper and Ben Elkins, junior Jared Hartman, and sophomores Alexis Stock and Ryan Kemp comprised one of eight teams that competed at the local level.

Each university entering the national competition participated in a local case competition. Teams were given two weeks to develop solutions for the case, which they presented to a judging panel of three partners from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Houston and Dallas offices.

Associate Professor of Accounting and Carroll Phillips Fellow Michael Kinney, who coached all eight teams, says, “critical thinking, teamwork, creativity and polished presentation skills are necessary components of a winning presentation.”

Vying for a spot as one of the five national xTax finalists, the Mays team submitted a videotape of their presentation, which is under review by a distinguished panel of executives from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Washington, D.C. office. Finalists, which will be announced by mid-December, are awarded $10,000 and invited to Washington on an all-expenses-paid trip to present their cases to the judges.