Yeah! First place nationally in the Deloitte Tax Competition! I was so excited when I heard the news yesterday. I often feel like it isn't real. I am glad that everything worked out and we could return honor to the BYU Accounting Program. We were so happy to learn that BYU also got first place in the graduate division! Not too bad at all.
Let me give you a bit of an update on this whole competition. Back in April, my tax professor asked if I wanted to be on the undergraduate team with 3 other guys. I said yes. I studied during the summer, but always felt I should study more. This nagging feeling was in addition to the frustration I felt at work.
Upon returning to school, my group met most Saturday mornings for practice runs with the cases used in previous years' competitions. I hated getting up so early every single day. 8 AM classes Monday-Thursday, 8 AM practice on Saturday, and 8 AM church on Sunday. Geez! Whenever we practiced I felt that we had little chance of winning. Even the night before, a teammate asked, "How do you think we'll do?" I didn't think we'd win, that's for sure. However, the day of the competition changed my mind.
We showed up to the Deloitte office in the Wells Fargo Building and loved the view from Utah's tallest building (I lived in taller buildings in Taiwan, but that's another story). We ate breakfast and started the competition (5 hours). We worked hard and pushed each other and shifted work from overloaded people to others in the group, etc. In the end, I felt that we had never performed as well as we had that day. As my mission president would say, "We left it all on the field." The worst part was waiting 10 days for the results.
They came yesterday: BYU first place. $2,000 to each student, $10,000 to BYU for each time. That means when Choose to Give comes around, I can tell them I gave $2,500 to the School of Accountancy. Don't mind if I do!
I learned several things from this competition: first, wives are awesome. Megan never doubted me or nagged me to study. Encouragement and true love made this possible. Second, good things come out of bad/hard situations. All I heard at John Deere went something like this, "Oh, tax? I hate tax, I can't believe someone would want to do tax." Don't get me started on that. Just remember that I'll be riding elephants in Asia next summer and they'll be working on spreadsheets. Third, surround yourself with positive people and miracles happen!
Life is good, it's as simple as that!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
It's Over!
Hey everyone! Life is great! Today was the Deloitte Tax Case Study Competition at the Salt Lake office of Deloitte. Megan and I got to stay at the Downtown Marriott and go swimming with a couple of our friends. We slept so well on the nice double bed (a double bed has to be smaller than a full bed). The room reminded me of the room we stay in when we visited Toronto. When I woke up this morning, I was reconsidering if I wanted to be a tax accountant. I mean, look at the name of the competition, it just reeks of nerdiness!
Back to the actual competition, we read the case and went to work. We started reviewing the questions and started dividing the work. I worked on a question related to the sale of a patent and how the purchaser would treat the purchase for tax purposes. I finished writing my answer when I read a tiny clause within the Internal Revenue Code (a former professor called them a santa clause) which totally overturned my answer. Oops. At least I didn't submit an incorrect answer.
One cool thing happened during the competition. I had a question to answer and had no idea what to do. I searched for "patent" for the question mentioned above. When the search results came up, Section 83 was among them. I don't think Section 83 has anything to do with patents (maybe another santa clause). I think it was God's way of helping me. I finished all my questions and things went way better than they ever did during our long, grueling practices as a team.
I am so thankful that it's all over. I learned that I was on this team back in April. I was often stressed out that I hadn't studied hard enough during the summer. It goes without saying that after a long, boring day at work, I didn't feel like studying more accounting. I also think it was God's way of teaching me to pass all four parts of the CPA exam before I start working full-time!
I'll find out in 10 days if we won. 24 hours ago, I didn't think we had much of a chance, but after we submitted our answer, I think it's possible! Not too bad. Whenever I do well in tax accounting (like today), I get really excited to start working. Speaking of working, I have an interview on Friday and will get to visit Portland! I am pretty excited, I'll let you know how everything ends up. Hope things are going well for you!
Back to the actual competition, we read the case and went to work. We started reviewing the questions and started dividing the work. I worked on a question related to the sale of a patent and how the purchaser would treat the purchase for tax purposes. I finished writing my answer when I read a tiny clause within the Internal Revenue Code (a former professor called them a santa clause) which totally overturned my answer. Oops. At least I didn't submit an incorrect answer.
One cool thing happened during the competition. I had a question to answer and had no idea what to do. I searched for "patent" for the question mentioned above. When the search results came up, Section 83 was among them. I don't think Section 83 has anything to do with patents (maybe another santa clause). I think it was God's way of helping me. I finished all my questions and things went way better than they ever did during our long, grueling practices as a team.
I am so thankful that it's all over. I learned that I was on this team back in April. I was often stressed out that I hadn't studied hard enough during the summer. It goes without saying that after a long, boring day at work, I didn't feel like studying more accounting. I also think it was God's way of teaching me to pass all four parts of the CPA exam before I start working full-time!
I'll find out in 10 days if we won. 24 hours ago, I didn't think we had much of a chance, but after we submitted our answer, I think it's possible! Not too bad. Whenever I do well in tax accounting (like today), I get really excited to start working. Speaking of working, I have an interview on Friday and will get to visit Portland! I am pretty excited, I'll let you know how everything ends up. Hope things are going well for you!
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