This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 29, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: A team of four Malaysian students emerged as champion of the inaugural Southeast Asia Deloitte Tax Challenge (SEA DTC) 2016, which challeng participants to dig deep into their tax knowledge, while also honing their writing, speaking and presentation skills.

Team TaxWiz from Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, comprising of Thiban Raj Arumugam, Angelina Tai Fern Jian, Chiang Weizheng and Rupina Kangasothy, took home the RM8,000 cash prize.

“It’s really unexpected that we won. We are very honoured. The main factor in winning the challenge was the teamwork we had,” said Thiban. Angelina said her team members supported each other, while Rupina highlighted that it was important that no single speaker overshadowed the rest of the team members.

Meanwhile, Phua Kuan Hua from the Singapore Management University won the first place under the individual category, which earned him a RM5,000 cash prize. He was also named the “Best Writer”, which brought him another RM1,000 cash prize.

Overall, RM21,500 in prize money and awards — sponsored by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Malaysia and Wolters Kluwer CCH — were presented to the winners in both the individual and group categories, which, besides the Best Presenter and Best Writer awards, included their respective merit awards as well.

The Fifth Avenue team from Thammasat University, Thailand, was named the first runner-up in the group category, and took home with it a cash prize of RM4,000. Mah Wen Jian from University  of Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia, was the first runner-up in the individual category, which rewarded him a RM2,500 cash prize.

Participants had to undergo intense presentation training facilitated by presenters from the ACCA, BFM89.9 and Deloitte last Thursday before the competition itself last Friday, whereby participants had to analyse a two-part case study and present their solutions within a 20-minute presentation, after a one-and-a-half-hour preparation.

“Deloitte Malaysia is extremely proud to have hosted the inaugural SEA DTC 2016, which aims at cultivating and enriching the next generation of tax professionals in the region,” Deloitte Malaysia managing director Yee Wing Peng said during the event.

Held annually at the national level in Malaysia since 2008, the Deloitte Tax Challenge brought in a record turnout of 2,667 participants last year. This year marks the first year the competition goes regional, and with it came participants not only from Malaysia, but Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia as well — some 3,054 altogether.

“It has indeed grown in participation and stature — from the first challenge in 2008, where 800 participants competed, till the 2015 edition, where a record 2,667 challengers from 47 top-ranked higher-learning institutions took part. Unearthing talents is key in ensuring we have among the best people in the industry. The challenge has been instrumental not only in enabling us to identify top talents, but also in raising the stature of the accounting profession as a whole,” Deloitte Malaysia country managing partner Tan Theng Hooi shared.