Business student leads volunteer effort to help public file taxes
Accounting students rank fourth in nation for exam rates
New venture competition awards KU design students $7,200
More than 400 KU students and community members are expected to seek assistance from the KU law school’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program (VITA) this year. As the program continues to grow, the KU School of Business has taken a larger role in helping the law school provide free e-filing for students, low income and elderly taxpayers.
This year, law school Associate Dean Stephen Mazza chose a business student to lead the VITA program. Master of Accounting student Jerrod Commerford worked closely with Mazza to plan the project, recruit, train, and schedule volunteers.
“Jerrod has excellent organizational skills and his work with the program should make everything go much more smoothly than it normally does,” Mazza said. “He was the right person for the job.”
Individual taxpayers can receive help from KU student volunteers both on campus and in community locations from February 18 to April 15. Last year, 30 Tax Club members performed more than 300 hours of service.
Visit the School of Business Web site for more information, including a complete schedule.
The School of Business Accounting program maintains its noteworthy success, as the school placed fourth in the nation for schools with the highest CPA exam passing rate for first-time candidates without advanced degrees.
The latest data shows nearly 22,000 candidates took the Uniform CPA Examination for the first time. Of these, 72 percent of the candidates from KU passed on their first attempt.
Most CPA candidates that take the exam are repeat candidates. Of the nearly 69,300 candidates who took at least one of the four sections of the CPA exam, more than half of these students had attempted the exam previously.
This high ranking for first-time candidates means the business school is teaching our students the skills they need to succeed in the working world.
A business plan for the design and manufacture of “…shower chairs meticulously engineered to alleviate medical ailments…” was selected as the inaugural winner of the Mark L. Morris New Venture Development business plan competition. Jana Silverman and Ann Fitzgerald, both KU industrial design majors in the School of Fine Arts, submitted the winning plan and received a total cash award of $7,200 to help fund their new venture.
“We were honored to compete and win in this competition,” Fitzgerald said. “Jana and I have spent more than 500 hours developing and refining our business concept and design of a unique shower chair that reduces the medical stigma of aging, under our company name, Silver-Gerald.”
Eighty students from across the university began submitting plans during the fall semester for the New Venture Competition. On Feb. 8, 10 finalists presented their business plans to a panel of judges comprising venture capitalists, company executives and financiers.
Visit the
School of Business Web site for more information.
