A senator has warned he would raise moves by PwC to keep key regulators and the parliament in the dark over a key review into the tax leaks, with the Senate hearing more partners from the firm now faced formal investigation. 

A senator has warned he would raise moves by PwC to keep key regulators and the parliament in the dark over a key review into the tax leaks, with the Senate hearing more partners from the firm now faced formal investigation. 
Appearing late on Wednesday, members of the Australian Taxation Office and Tax Practitioners Board discussed the scandal surrounding audit and consulting giant PwC. 
The TPB told the Senate it had not been handed a copy of the review into the PwC scandal prepared by law firm Linklaters, which charts the links between international partners from the firm and the leaks of confidential Australian government tax briefings. 
The ATO also confirmed to Senate Estimates it had not been handed the Linklaters review. 
This comes after PwC’s new local boss Kevin Burrowes told a separate Senate inquiry he had also not seen the key report investigating the leaks. 
Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck said PwC’s moves to withhold the findings may amount to a “pattern of behaviour”, warning he would attempt to raise the firm’s reluctance to share the findings of the Linklaters review. 
TPB chair Peter de Cure told parliament the regulator, which accredits members of the tax profession, was in constructive dialogue with PwC “at the Australian level”. 
But he noted the moves to suppress the findings of the Linklaters review, which identified six members of PwC who dealt with confidential information, amounted to an attempt to quarantine the issue. 
“It would be my opinion that PwC are using normal issues management processes to try isolate this issue to their Australian practice and not allow it to affect their international practice,” Mr de Cure said. 
Mr de Cure, who took on the running of the TPB in the wake of the scandal, said PwC was continuing to hand over tranches of information to the regulator as it sought to widen its investigations into the firm’s misuse of confidential information. 
He said PwC had agreed to hand over further batches of information, noting another tax partner from the firm was now in the TPB’s sights. 
Mr de Cure said another partner was facing a formal investigation taking the total to two PwC tax partners. 
But Mr de Cure warned the investigations were leading to more information “that may cause us to look into other avenues”, with almost one third of the TPB’s resources now tied up in the PwC case.

Tax Practitioners Board chair Peter de Cure said PwC was attempting to isolate the tax leaks to the Australian arm of the firm. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Tax Practitioners Board chair Peter de Cure said PwC was attempting to isolate the tax leaks to the Australian arm of the firm. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman
ATO deputy commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn told the Senate he had also not seen the findings of the Linklaters report into the PwC scandal. 
However, Mr Hirschhorn told the Senate he took issue with evidence given by Mr Burrowes, at the last hearing of the Finance and Public Administration committee. 
PwC told the Senate at the last hearings the leaks and breaches of confidentiality by the firm’s former head of international tax Peter Collins was around the date of the introduction of the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law in 2016. 
“I don’t think we’d be here if the only breach of confidentiality was the date,” he said. 
Mr Hirschhorn said PwC’s evidence was “a very cute description”, cautioning the suggestion that the firm‘s actions had not resulted in any lost tax revenues were “like the bank robbers being thwarted … and saying they didn’t take any money”. 
The ATO deputy commissioner also took aim at evidence given by PwC’s former chief executive Luke Sayers at a recent Senate hearing. 
Mr Hirschhorn has claimed he told Mr Sayers to review a number of emails which allegedly detailed the confidentiality breaches by Mr Collins and the sharing of the information within the firm. 
Mr Sayers maintains he does not remember this statement and did not review those emails. 
However, Mr Hirschhorn told the Senate it was “my recollection”, pointing the inquiry to a PwC report which noted the governance board in September 2019 considered a “recent discussion that Luke had with the ATO”. 
He said the report pointed to the board considering several issues including “a PwC partner” who sat in on a confidential discussion and “also disclosed confidential information in a commercial way”.