Category Archives: Alexandria

Alexandria Newman’s posts

Academics, Alexandria, Centennial, MPA Council, Student Life

Happy New Year!

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Last year I wrote a blog about New Year’s resolutions, so this year I thought I’d switch it up and look at the past year in review. And because accountants love numbers so much, let us take a look at the past year in numbers.

300: Hours of lost sleep

268: Number of Intermediate Accounting problems worked

750: Cups of coffee drank

64.5: Hours spent researching tax law

90: Number of hours spent at McCombs studying during finals

10: Number of Esteemed Lyceum Speakers

13: Number of football games I wish I we had won

9: Number of football games actually won

11: Number of interceptions thrown by UT quarterbacks in 2012 (ugh, this just pains my heart)

28: Number of volleyball games won on the pursuit of the national championship (and this one warms my heart right back up!)

13: Number of Longhorn medals in the 2012 London Summer Olympics (6 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze)

67: Number of all-time gold medals won by Longhorns (not a 2012 fact, but this picture definitely went viral in the UT network during 2012)

309: Number of new MPA candidates admitted

2: Number of MPA Council awards given at 2012 spring commencement

100: Number of years UT Accounting has celebrated

7: Number of years in a row UT Accounting has been ranked #1 at the graduate level

2: Number of National Championships won by Longhorns this year

1: Number of med schools coming to the UT Austin community

2012 was clearly a fantastic year, and here’s to 2013 being as equally memorable and classy!

Keep it classy, Longhorns.

Academics, Alexandria, MPA Council, Student Life

MPA Council: Best Decision of my MPA Career

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One of my biggest passions in the MPA Program: MPA Council. Since the council is involved in so many areas of student life, it’s hard to fully describe it in a blog post. I’ll attempt to present a good overview of the group and if you have questions I haven’t answered, don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments section.

What is MPA Council?

Before I describe the Council, I am going to describe the MPA Program the way I currently see it. The MPA Program is composed of 4 groups: students, staff, faculty, and alumni. Each of these groups have a lot to offer the program, and there will come a time you need help from one of these groups, and it pays to have a variety of contacts in each group to get things done.  One of the overall long term goals of MPA Council is to be a central body that facilitates communication between these four groups. I love diagrams, so I have drawn a diagram to illustrate this.  For example, if the MPA Program Office had a new idea, and wanted to gage student interest, it could talk to the Council and the Council could gain insight from a large number of students. The Council’s overall mission is to create a community within the MPA Program. It is commonly interpreted that this means the Council provides MPA students to get to know each other in a variety of settings. This is true, but more than that, the Council is about establishing a community within the four aspects of the program I described earlier. In other words, the Council hopes to synergize the unique and extremely proficient skill sets and capabilities of each of these groups and use them to ensure our program is the best in the nation.

MPA Council members at our boat party on Lake Austin

The council provides members with professional, academic, community service, and social events to participate in. Some of the events hosted this year include a boat party on Lake Austin, State of Accounting discussion with Dr. Lillian Mills, the Accounting Department’s Centennial Celebration with our lovely mascot Bevo, and a PhD panel (you can see pictures from our events here). Coming up we have Ethics Week, speakers for our distinguished speaker series, Faculty Appreciation Week.

Why did I join the Council?

I remember sitting at orientation listening to the professor panels, and professors saying how important it was to know your classmates for group cases and the importance of studying with classmates. I started freaking out, as I only know about 5 people on a speaking basis in the entire integrated class, and I was convinced I was going to fail everything. They talked about the Council at orientation, and I dove in so I could meet my fellow MPAs outside of the classroom. It was the best decision I have made in relation to my MPA degree. I have met so many people with distinct backgrounds and perspectives that I would never have been able to do in the classroom. It’s also provided me so many opportunities and resources within the MPA Program I don’t think I otherwise would have had.

What is my favorite part about the Council?

My personal favorite event of the Council is Member’s only Monday. One Monday a month, the Council provides its members with bagels, breakfast burritos, and coffee. It’s a come and go event, but it’s nice to sit in between classes with lovely MPAs and have a delicious free breakfast!

Alexandria, Austin

The Lance Armstrong Scandal from an Accounting Perspective

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The US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced on Friday that it would be stripping Lance Armstrong’s 7 Tour de France titles from him, as well as permanently banning him from competitive cycling. I think this scandal is important to talk about in that it relates to our role as accountants.

You might be reading this thinking, “Does this scandal even relate to accounting?” The answer is yes, it absolutely does. The scandal in this issue is in part the results of the investigation, but mostly in how the investigation was conducted. The USADA used a number of procedures that were at best questionable and at most inherently illegal. We as accountants can learn from this scandal due to the fact that our role in society is very similar to that of the USADA. The USADA monitors US racers to ensure that bike races are fair and perfectly competitive. Auditors monitor organizations to ensure that the competition for-profits and shareholders are also fair and perfectly competitive. The difference between auditors and the USADA is what society expects of us and how we are socially reprimanded for unfair or unethical procedures.

This last statement may be a little strong, but let me frame it how I am seeing it. Armstrong was a retired cyclist when the case was brought against him. Any of the rulings wouldn’t make current cycling races fairer for riders. The USADA also brought charges against Armstrong that are over 17 years old, even though the organization has an 8 year limitation on these types of matters. The USADA seems to be changing its rules to get the results and publicity it wants while it preaches that everyone should be held to the same rules. According to U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks who oversaw the case against Armstrong, “USADA’s conduct raises serious questions about whether its real interest in charging Armstrong is to combat doping, or if it is acting according to less noble motives, such as politics or publicity.”

Now let’s pretend that instead of a cycling investigation, this was a public company’s audit. If something this negative was said by a U.S. District Judge in relation to how an audit procedure was conducted, the public would be outraged. There would be lawsuits and huge damages to be paid.  The accounting firm’s reputation may even be permanently tarnished. But because the USADA doesn’t affect the majority of people directly, most don’t care enough to hold the “watchdog” accountable for unethical actions.

As accountants, what we can learn from this scandal is that the most important thing is to be fair and objective. It is essential to follow proper and standard procedures and to not cater to things like publicity and politics. We are watchdogs, not bullies. We need to make sure that every action we take and every decision we make is done to ensure business is a fair game to be won, and companies that exceed our expectations are not punished for playing by the rules.

Alexandria, Career, Student Life

Go Figure!

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Like auditors, skating judges have created their fair share of scandals

Just last weekend, I went home to Dallas in order to judge at a local figure skating competition. When I was at the rink, I had the opportunity to talk to my old skating coaches and friends. The question that always came up was, “What are you studying at school?” When I told them I was an MPA tax track student, many of them gave me a very puzzled look and asked how I ended up choosing that as my career. I thought it was very interesting that many of my friends in the skating world didn’t see what was so attractive about accounting, just because I feel the skills I have developed as a skating judge have helped better me for my career in accounting.

Being knowledgeable about the rules and being able to apply them in snap decisions- The first thing a skating judge must do before taking the panel to judge an event is to familiarize themselves with the rules and requirements of a well-balanced program for the level of the event they are going to judge. If a skater doesn’t do enough elements a well-balanced program requires, or if skaters do elements that are not allowed in a particular level, judges must be able to immediately recognize this in order to make the best possible decision in determining the score the skater’s performance deserves. Judges have to have to determine the skater’s score almost instantly, as they only have a few moments in between each skater in order to award their marks. Like judges, accountants have to be aware of all the standards when they go to work for a client. They also need to be able to apply these rules in quick, stressful situations. Continue reading Go Figure! →

Alexandria, MPA Council, MPAC, Student Life, Uncategorized

“An Inconvenient Tax”

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On Monday, April 16, MPA Council screened “An Inconvenient Tax” to celebrate the end of tax season. For those of you who have not seen the video, I highly encourage you watch it. The film did a great job capturing the complexity of the US tax code, and explaining the most popular theories of ways to reform it. I feel this video is important to everyone, not just those interested in accounting and tax, because tax reform is going to be a major point of debate in the upcoming presidential election. Many of these theories of reform come up often in current events, and I now understand them better thanks to the documentary.

After the film was screened, the MPA Program Director Jim Franklin led a discussion amongst the council members present. Jim brought up many questions that sparked a healthy debate, the most memorable one being “What do you think will happen regarding the tax code in the future?”

There were many good and valid answers to this question, and this question continues to make me think.  Here is my very personal opinion about the future of the tax code, based on my current knowledge:

I hear many people talking about simplifying the tax code and implementing a flat or fair tax to replace our current complicated system. I completely agree the code needs to be simplified, and here are some facts to back up that opinion:

  • The current tax code is four times the length of Shakespeare’s complete volume of works
  • Over 16,000 changes have been made to the tax code in the past 20 years
  • American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year, more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.
  • The IRS sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth. Nearly 300,000 trees are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the IRS forms and instructions. (there are many more facts not included here that will blow your mind!)

The code in my mind has gotten out of hand. One of the reasons why is because congressmen continually use the tax code to please constituents and donors.  They soften the blow of their poor performance by creating loopholes for their major donors or try to create tax credits and deductions their constituents can use. If we replace our current system with a simpler tax policy, I don’t see why congressmen won’t continue to try to create tax breaks and changing the code until it eventually becomes as complicated as it is today. Continue reading “An Inconvenient Tax” →