KUCHING – An undergraduate student from Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus will represent Malaysia at the Deloitte Southeast Asia Tax Challenge 2017 (SEA DTC 2017) final in Singapore in February.
Accounting and Finance major James Voon Tein Wei had recently emerged as champion in the individual category of the national level Deloitte Tax Challenge 2016 (DTC 2016), and will face champions from other countries at the international round.
Besides taking home more than RM10,000 in cash and prizes as well as the chance to intern with the tax division of any Deloitte Southeast Asia office, the final-year student also has a job waiting for him at the company when he completes his studies.
During the first stage of DTC 2016 at Swinburne Sarawak, Voon sat for the one-hour multiple-choice-question examination and outshone the 1,688 challengers to advance to the second stage.
He then beat 72 of the 85 semi-finalists in the second stage and emerged as one of the 13 finalists through oral and written examinations.
“During the final stage at the Deloitte Malaysia office in Kuala Lumpur, he won over the panel of judges by presenting indigenous tax planning ideas confidently,” said his taxation lecturer, Dr Ling Chui Ching.
Voon was the only Swinburne Sarawak student who made it through the competition.
“As the competition took place during the university’s peak period, the students found it difficult to focus on the competition as they wanted to prepare for the mid-semester tests as well. Apart from that, some students had to take the CPA Australia professional exam,” explained Dr Ling, who coached Voon through the three stages of the championship.
“The best thing from this is the awesome people that I’ve met. Both professionals and participants have great personalities and I’ve learnt a lot from them. The experience is invaluable,” said Voon.
Swinburne Sarawak had sponsored Voon’s participation in DTC 2016 and will again pick up the expenses when he competes at SEA DTC 2017, which is set to take place at Deloitte University Asia Pacific in Sentosa, Singapore in February.
