Deloitte competition teams meet (and beat!) last year’s performance

Accounting , Areas of Study , Stories Students | Dec 05, 2012 | Nicole Gesualdo

Last year, one of Fordham’s two teams edged out its competitors from several other regional universities to earn a ticket to the national round of Deloitte’s FanTAXtic tax case-study competition.

A Fordham team repeated that feat this year, vanquishing seven squads from Drexel College, Baruch College, St. John’s University and Fairfield University. Its five members will travel to Dallas next month to face off against the best teams from other U.S. regions.

Kicking the achievement level up another notch from last year? This year’s other competing team from Fordham placed second, earning the regional contest’s top honorable mention. These students take home $200 each and $2,000 for the university.

“We are very proud of both teams,” said accounting professor Stan Veliotis, who, along with his colleague Paul Kushel, advises Fordham’s Deloitte competitors. “They worked really hard through difficult circumstances, including the delay of the competition due to Hurricane Sandy.”

In the competition, students had to analyze nearly a hundred pages of financial and other documents to come up with viable solutions to an in-depth, multifaceted tax case study. They had to produce an integrated Powerpoint slide deck and make a presentation to a panel of Deloitte judges.

The potential rewards in the national round of FanTAXtic are high. It carries a grand prize of $10,000 for the winning university and an additional $2,000 for each team member. Second-place nationwide comes with $5,000 for the university and $1,000 for each student, and third brings $2,500 for the school and $500 per student. All teams that participate in nationals receive minimum awards for themselves and their universities just for advancing.

Congratulations to both the winning team and the honorable mention team. Going to nationals are Jason Ta (GSB ’13), Anthony Perrone (GSB ’13), Nevin Kulangara (GSB ’15) and Brittany Tobin (GSB ’15), and their graduate-school team member, Andrew Parks (GBA ’13). The honorable-mention team included Matt Kennedy (GSB ’13), Siobhan Reidy (GSB ’13), Melanie Falk (GSB ’15) and graduate-school member John DeBlasi (GBA ’13). The fifth member of the honorable-mention team was Emily Osman (GSB ’15), who was unable to participate in the presentation at the regional round due to the hurricane-related postponement.