In response to orders issued by the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has produced and published a Compliance Report dated 14 July 2023.
The TPB’s Order, was issued on 25 November 2022, and requires PwC to take specific actions to improve its compliance and conflict of interest management. PwC must report to the TPB on their improvements each 6 months until 31 December 2024.
TPB Chair, Peter de Cure AM, acknowledged the report and said ‘PwC have agreed to pro-active transparency with the TPB. This report shows steps PwC has taken to comply with the TPB’s Order, including additional training on legal and ethical issues for over 1,300 personnel.’
PwC trains 1300 staff on honesty and integrity (after a warning)
PwC has complied with an order to provide additional training to more than 1300 mostly tax-related partners and staff on their professional behaviour, including the need to act with honesty, integrity and to keep client information confidential.
PwC has reminded personnel that they need to act with integrity. Martin Ollman
The order was part of a punishment issued to the firm by the Tax Practitioners Board in late 2022 after it sanctioned the firm and former partner Peter Collins over the leaking of confidential government information.
The TPB, which polices tax agents, took enforcement action after ruling Mr Collins shared secret government information that was used to advise clients on how to sidestep new tax laws.
The board deregistered Mr Collins as a tax agent. PwC was also ordered to provide extra training on a six-monthly basis to relevant personnel, to create a register of staff who had signed confidentiality agreements and to report on its compliance with these orders.
The first of these reports was published by the TPB on Tuesday morning. PwC’s report states that the firm has complied with the order and has so far put 1329 personnel through a training course that reminds them about the need to act professionally and has created a centralised confidentiality agreement register.
“The TPB welcomes improvements made by PwC and all tax practitioners, to enhance professional standards, including integrity, confidentiality and conflict of interest management,” TPB chairman Peter de Cure said in a statement.
Multiple inquiries, investigations
A spokeswoman for PwC said the firm had published the report, which includes the training material used, as part of a push to “enhance the firm’s transparency and culture”.
The PwC’s tax leaks scandal, first revealed by The Australian Financial Review, involved multiple partners from around the world using confidential government information to help US tech giants sidestep tax laws that Mr Collins was helping Treasury design.
The extent of the scandal, revealed in a cache of emails obtained by Labor senator Deborah O’Neill in May, and the firm’s subsequent cover-up has led to the humbling of a once-mighty firm during the past three months.
It has also raised questions about why the matter took years to be exposed by regulators, led to questions about the extent of the TPB’s original punishment of the firm and Mr Collins, and revealed deep fissures between officials at the TPB and the Australian Tax Office who argued over the investigation of the matter.
PwC global has effectively taken over the Australian firm by parachuting in executive Kevin Burrowes to be its new chief executive and forcing out nine senior partners, including former chief executive Tom Seymour, over the leaks matter.
This is in addition to other wholesale changes in the firm’s top leadership and the fire sale of its government consulting arm, which generated about $600 million in annual revenue, to private equity investor Allegro Funds for just $1. The sale was forced by PwC being effectively cut out of winning Commonwealth work once the extent of the leaks matter was revealed.
The scandal has also triggered an Australian Federal Police investigation, a new TPB inquiry and three other parliamentary inquiries. The AFP has not identified any individuals beyond former PwC tax partner Peter Collins as being under investigation.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court of NSW will hear a case involving a veteran PwC partner who is fighting a move by the firm to force him out. Tax partner Richard Gregg obtained a temporary injunction last Wednesday to prevent from forcing him to “retire from the partnership of PricewaterhouseCoopers”
