Members of the global leadership of auditing giant PwC have intervened in a growing Australian tax leak scandal that now threatens to affect parts of the firm’s operations in other parts of the world.
Several senior leaders at PwC Australia now downincluding the firm’s chief executive, Tom Seymour, after it emerged that a PwC tax partner was sharing confidential information about the Australian Government’s tax reform plans with the firm’s other partners and employees.
The Australian arm of the firm, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers and widely regarded as one of the world’s “Big 4” accounting giants, published the leak to target new potential clients seeking to dodge upcoming tax law changes. Hui Intel used.
ICIJ partner The Australian Financial Review revealed in January that PwC partner Peter Collins’ registration as a tax agent was terminated For leaking intelligence from his work with the Australian government. Collins was advising the Treasury on measures to combat international tax avoidance.
A set of redacted internal PwC emails released earlier this month by the Tax Practitioners Board shows that between 2014 and 2017, Collins shared secret information with dozens of PwC team members.
PwC allegedly took advantage of its advanced knowledge of tax reforms to target a group of companies known as the “Dirty Thirty” for siphoning off tech companies and other tax avoiders using tax havens worth millions Asked to book the fees. Google, Apple and Microsoft are believed to be among the companies approached by the firm Within hours of the Australian government announcing a new anti-tax law in mid-2015, the Australian Financial Review reported.
While the company names in the set of PwC emails were redacted, the firm said it was likely the companies themselves would know they were named; However, the firm also said that companies would not necessarily know that the advice they were receiving at the time was developed using the leaked information.
The redacted email chain shows a flurry of activity around proposed or introduced legislation around 2015 and 2016 – a time when tax avoidance by multinational corporations was in the public spotlight. The ICIJ’s Luxembourg Leaks investigation, published in late 2014, showed how PwC Luxembourg was helping big brand-name corporations reduce tax bills by funneling money through the small European duchy. Australian PwC emails show the firm used offices around the world to help it access the leaked information, including London, Singapore, New York and the Netherlands.
Australian lawmakers are calling for the members of the PwC team involved in the scandal and the companies they advised to be made public. Others are also calling for PwC to be banned from government contracts. likely to be at the center of a scam Senate Estimates Hearing next week.