As someone who just finished their second co-op work term in the tax field with the intent to return to tax for another co-op term, I realized that this is the career path I want to take going forward. With that pursuit in mind, I immediately took the opportunity to sign up for the third annual Young Tax Professionals (YTP) Case Competition. For the competition this year we had to examine complex proposed tax legislation that was released in February of 2022 which introduced a new earnings stripping regime to the Canadian Income Tax Act. As a part of the competition, we were required to critique the legislation, compare the proposals to existing earnings stripping legislation in other jurisdictions and present our findings including examples of application.
The YTP Case Competition challenged my team and me not only to apply concepts we learned in class but to also understand the impact of the concepts, why we apply them, and what it means for the decisions we make. An important aspect of the case competition was conducting an in-person presentation, which was quite significant after spending approximately two years conducting presentations remotely. Generating a voice recording and sitting in front of a camera does not provide an accurate representation of what presentations are like in front of a live audience. As a team, we had to focus on important elements like eye contact with the audience, and effective body language to contribute to the audience’s understanding of our presentation. The three of us were cooperative when preparing our presentation and looked to each other for suggestions and feedback — always having a continuous improvement mindset.
I had my ups and downs while preparing for the case and juggling course work at the same time, however, I learned that once you are in the moment, presenting in front of your peers and professors, you will quickly realize it’s not the scariest thing you will face. Overall, we are grateful to have had the experience of participating in the YTP Case Competition this year and are highly motivated to participate in more case competitions in the future. My team agrees with me when I say that you should take advantage of the opportunities that you are given in university —you won’t regret them!