<
https://theconversation.com/pwc-scandal-shows-consultants-like-church-officials-are-best-kept-out-of-state-affairs-205560>
"Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers called it “an appalling breach of trust”.
But the scandal involving the local arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the
world’s second-largest professional services firm, is much worse than that.
PwC Australia’s chief executive Tom Seymour and two other board members, Pete
Calleja and Sean Gregory, last week finally resigned their leadership positions
over the use of confidential information about Australian tax policy to help
PwC clients avoid paying tax.
In January, it was revealed the Tax Practitioners Board had (in late 2022)
terminated the registration of PwC Australia’s former head of international
tax, Peter-John Collins, for sharing information he gained at confidential
Treasury consultations. Collins left PwC last October.
In March, the Senate announced an inquiry into the integrity of consulting
services. Seymour downplayed the leak as a “perception issue”.
Things only substantially changed after the inquiry this month published
internal PwC emails showing that (in the words of the
Australian Financial
Review) “for years, dozens of PwC operatives used confidential updates on
government tax plans obtained by Collins to drum up new tax clients”.
Up to eight partners shared the information about plans to tackle multinational
tax avoidance. As many as 40 of PwC’s 900 partners received emails discussing
using the information. This included Seymour. (For context, PwC Australia has
about 900 partners and 8,000 staff.)
It wasn’t until the emails were made public that Seymour announced an
“independent” review of the firm’s governance, culture and accountability (to
be done by former Telstra chief executive Ziggy Switkowski), with the partners
who received the emails being put through PwC’s “consequence management
framework”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
