Fordham tax team headed to Deloitte nationals
Accounting , Areas of Study , Beta Alpha Psi , Event Recaps , Stories Student Organizations & Clubs | Oct 31, 2011 | Nicole Gesualdo
Four Gabelli accounting students and one GBA student have advanced to the national round of the Deloitte tax case study competition, which the company reworked this year to be even more rigorous. The nationals will be held on November 18 in Dallas and will pit the Fordham group against students from top-tier university tax programs around the country.
Congratulations to Chris Minutoli (GSB ’12), Sean Pinckney (GSB ’12), Gabby Kennedy (GSB ’14), Alex Kohn (GSB ’14), their graduate-student colleague, Julia Wu, and their advisors, Professors Stanley Veliotis and Paul Kushel. The students already are guaranteed to take home $200 each and $2,000 for the university just by competing at nationals, and if they should win there, they could be awarded $2,000 apiece — and bring back $10,000 for Fordham.
The team made nationals by developing a worthy solution to what Professor Veliotis called “a very extensive, multi-issue case study.” The team had two weeks to analyze the case, prepare materials based on their analysis, and rehearse the in-person presentation they would have to give at the regional round, which was held on October 21 and 22. Two Fordham teams competed in the regionals.
In the case study, the team received nearly 100 pages of very realistic financial and legal information for a corporate client, along with an outline of several of the company’s goals, such as:
- To expand operations by obtaining new funds, either from an IPO or from a complicated sale/lease-back of its properties
- To make a tax-efficient investment in research and development
- To create a special-purpose charitable arm of its business
- To acquire another company in a tax-efficient way
Professor Veliotis said the five team members each took charge of one of the highly technical tax issues at hand, and then later had to bring all of their ideas into one cohesive set of recommendations to the client. All five team members had to participate in the presentation to the Deloitte judges.
Best of luck to the Fordham team on November 18 in Dallas! Even in qualifying for the national competition, you have made the Gabelli School of Business proud.
