#pwc #pricewaterhousecoopers #petercollins #peter-johncollins
Consulting firm PwC is under fire for revelations that some of its top partners are misusing classified Australian government information to help large multinationals avoid paying more taxes. The company's Australian CEO has resigned, nine senior partners have stalled, and man at center of scandal is being investigated by Australian Federal Police, questions that know who went unanswered and when. Here's the PwC scandal, who was involved, and what consequences the company could face. PwC stands for PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global professional services company that provides accounting and consulting services. In business world, it is considered one of the big four firms to offer such services, while other three are Deloitte, KPMG, and Ernst & Young . They do many things like accounting, auditing and advising large companies on how to minimize their tax bills. They also offer a range of consulting services to clients. Consulting is a somewhat vague term, but for purposes of understanding PwC, we'll keep it simple by defining it as the practice of businesses hiring experts to provide advice to solve problems. PwC's largest Australian client is the federal government, which uses it for a range of services, including defense, education and transportation spending, and even possible changes to the law. Being a consultant to the federal government is big business for PwC—in fact, it has awarded more than $537 million in Commonwealth contracts in the last two years alone, accounting for about 20 percent of its annual revenue. PwC promotes its "global expertise" to advise governments on its website. It's not just small government departments that PwC also consults. Large agencies such as Centrelink rely on firms like PwC to assist with parts of their role. PwC is also AFP's preferred consulting firm to deal with, with more than $20 million in awards on more than 20 million contracts since 2021. In other words, more than $537 million of taxpayer money used hire PwC experts to advise on how solve the government's problems. Why private companies once did job of the public service—as for why Australian governments have come back for decades in name of cost reduction and efficiency. While you may argue that outside knowledge is appropriate to solve government and business problems, it also leaves the door open for potential conflicts that arise. What did PwC do? To understand what happened, we need to go back in time. Nearly a decade ago, the federal government asked PwC's international tax expert Peter-John Collins to help draft laws that would solve a problem acquiring large overseas companies like Google, Facebook and Apple would pay their fair share of taxes in Australia. This legislation was known as Multinational Avoidance Act and was a key strategy of then treasurer Joe Hockey under the Coalition government, it is based on Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 's Fundamental Erosion Profits Exchange project. The MAAL is designed to pr

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