SIU’s Deloitte FanTAXtic winning team includes (back, from left) Evan Noelle, Lawson Ridgeway, Ryan Ruthenberg and Eliot Gonzalez, with Ava Maggiore in front. (Photo by Russell Bailey)
December 05, 2025
SIU students earn 3rd berth at national tax competition with regional victory
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Southern Illinois University Carbondale students have taken top honors once again in the recent 2025-26 regional Deloitte FanTAXtic tax case competition, punching its third ticket in the last four years to the nationals in January.
“This is very exciting,” said Benna Williams, assistant director and associate lecturer for the School of Accountancy in SIU’s College of Business and Analytics. “Our team was up against really tough competition.”
This year’s contest, sponsored by Deloitte Tax LLP, drew a record number of participants as more than 80 institutions of higher learning across the United States competed in the initial round. SIU bested some impressive competitors, including teams from the University of Illinois Chicago, Texas Southern University and the University of Mississippi. One of the U of I Chicago teams also advanced with SIU to the championships set for Jan. 23-25 in Dallas.
“Our Salukis made a very good presentation – very well-done and well-rehearsed,” said Tim Hurley, an accounting clinical associate professor who serves as the team’s faculty adviser.
The Salukis are aiming to repeat their success in the 2023-24 academic year, when they won nationals.
Top Dawgs
SIU’s FanTAXtic team includes:
- Lawson Ridgeway, a senior accounting and finance double major from Du Quoin, Illinois.
- Evan Noelle, a junior accounting major from Marion, Illinois.
- Eliot Gonzalez, a sophomore accounting and finance double major from Humboldt Park, Illinois.
- Ava Maggiore, a sophomore accounting major from Chicago.
- Ryan Ruthenberg, a sophomore accounting major from Elgin, Illinois.
“They really worked well together,” Hurley said. “It was obvious they were committed to doing a great job. They put a lot of work and study into their preparations, and it showed. It was a flawless presentation.”
Hurley said SIU’s victory is even more remarkable because Ridgeway is the only senior on the team and the only one who had already completed tax courses when the project began.
The experience and leadership of Ridgeway and Noelle were invaluable to the team, Maggiore said. “This accomplishment would not have been possible without them,” she said. “They outranked us in experience and knowledge. As a sophomore, I came into this knowing virtually nothing, but they took on the most difficult parts of the problem and gave us sophomores what we could handle. They were very good at guiding us through the information and teaching us what we needed to know. I really enjoyed learning new things and becoming closer to my teammates.”
Labor-intensive commitment
The most challenging part of the competition was the time commitment and preparation for the actual presentation, including honing the presentation down to fit the prescribed time perimeters, Maggiore said. She noted that most of the Salukis have jobs in addition to school.
She and her teammates estimate they spent a minimum of 10-20 hours each week doing research, working to solve the problem, reviewing data, creating the presentation and practicing their presentation.
The competition provides an experiential learning experience to complement the classroom learning students get at SIU, preparing the next generation of talented business students for their careers by asking them to solve a complex, real-world tax issue, Hurley said.
In early October, the students received their “problem,” and they had four weeks to research, put their heads together and come up with plans and recommendations. This year, the task involved partners planning to start a new business. Competitors were asked to analyze financials, tax laws and all other relevant components and determine if the company should be established as a limited liability corporation (LLC) partnership or as an S corporation, which is essentially a “pass-through” entity with profits and losses are handled as part of the owners’ personal income/expenditures and tax returns rather than through corporate tax rate structures.
The teams were given 5-year financial projections for the new company and financial data for each of the owners. They also had to determine whether property should be leased or purchased for the company and then use the revised projections, based on the lease or purchase costs, to determine total federal tax liability (including income, payroll and self-employment taxes) annually for five years.
Ridgeway said the most challenging part of the project was learning and comparing the numerous differences between S corporations and LLCs in a short period of time.
“I really enjoyed the consulting and role play aspect of this competition,” Ridgeway said. “It felt great to be able to compare different real-world alternatives and recommend the best one for our client. I plan to become a CPA and a CFA (certified financial analyst) and would like to do consulting and strategic work for my career. I feel like this accomplishment will help enormously in my future career and in job hunting. Not only does it give me something to talk about in interviews, but it also shows that I’m serious about what I’m going to school for. SIU helped tremendously in preparing me for this competition.
“Not only did my finance classes enable me to handle the financial aspects of the case, but as a former member of the Saluki Student Investment Fund, I already had additional valuable experience and a good idea of how to work well as a team and about what the expectations are. My mother used to be the Saluki Shakers coach, and going to tons of SIU basketball and football games as a kid inspired me to attend SIU. She owns a small business now, and I would love to be able to use the skills I’m learning at SIU and with this competition to help her with her business.”
Results that matter
The Salukis shared their recommendations with Deloitte partners who played client roles during the regionals. They pleaded their case during a 10-minute oral presentation, featuring 20-30 slides, and answered Deloitte questions for several minutes.
“The most difficult part was solving the problem and considering all of the different factors that may have affected the business,” Noelle said. “Professor Hurley spent a lot of time advising us through this process, acting as the ‘client’ during our presentations and creating a similar environment to what we would encounter during the actual presentation, and other things. We couldn’t have done it without his support.”
Maggiore also lauded Hurley for his guidance, instruction and giving them numerous examples of previous presentations to learn from.
With parents who are both alumni, Maggiore was drawn to SIU because of its “outstanding accounting program, atmosphere and beautiful campus” but learning that SIU won the national tax competition in 2023 is what initially made her seriously consider becoming a Saluki.
“That’s what made me tour the school and discover that this is the place for me,” she said.
Her teammates likewise say the reputation of SIU and its business college caught their attention and they’re thrilled with both the education they are receiving and the learning experience this competition is providing.
“It felt amazing to impress the judges and move on to the nationals, knowing that all of our hard work truly paid off,” Ridgeway said.
The Salukis say they are keeping everything they’ve already prepared fresh in their minds, continuing to study and practice both individually and as a team so they can be just as professional and polished in Dallas as they were in regionals.
Hurley said the teams advancing to nationals will compete with an extension of the original problem, requiring them to take their solutions to the next level. They won’t know what the specific challenge is until they get to Texas.
“Hopefully, we’ll bring back a trophy, but even if we don’t, everything was worth it,” Maggiore said. “This experience is something I’ll always value. I absolutely feel like it will benefit me in the future. I’ve gained a lot of knowledge and made connections, and we all demonstrated strong teamwork. I feel like it’s noteworthy to any recruiter, too. And at the end of the day, I’ve had fun.”