Former PWC partner banned after leaking confidential government tax plans

A former PWC partner was banned by the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) after he was found to have leaked confidential government tax plans, including new rules to stop multinationals avoiding tax, to other staff and partners at the firm.

The TPB said Peter-John Collins, a former tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has been deregistered as a tax agent for integrity breaches. This includes a two-year ban on becoming a registered tax practitioner.

Peter Collins, former international tax leader for PwC Australia, has had his registration as a tax agent terminated.
Peter Collins, former international tax leader for PwC Australia, has had his registration as a tax agent terminated.

The Australian Financial Review reported that Collins was a regular member of consultation groups set up by the Treasury and by the Board of Taxation to provide confidential advice to the government on matters that included its measures to combat international tax avoidance.

Collins, who was named tax adviser of the year by the Tax Institute of Australia in 2016, left PWC in October last year.

The TPB said its investigation revealed that Collins, while participating in confidential consultation with Treasury to improve tax laws, made unauthorised disclosures of this confidential law reform information to partners and staff of PwC.

“This included new rules to stop multinationals avoiding tax by shifting profits from Australia to tax and secrecy havens,” it said.

“Some of the confidential information was disclosed by Mr Collins with other PwC personnel who, in turn, disclosed to clients or potential clients of PwC,” it said.

The TPB found Mr Collins failed to act with integrity, and terminated his tax agent registration.

“We are very concerned when tax practitioners abuse their positions of trust, or fail to act with integrity,” TPB Chair, Ian Klug, said.

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TPB also determined that PwC had failed to properly manage conflicts of interest, when this confidential law reform information was shared with partners and staff in their tax practice and ordered PwC to put processes and training in place to ensure conflicts of interest are adequately managed in future.

“We acknowledge the TPB found that a partner of the firm did not comply with confidentiality agreements in relation to a consultation process with Treasury, which occurred in 2014,” said a PWC spokesman.

“We also acknowledge that PwC should have had specific conflict management procedures and policies operating at the time to prevent this occurring. In each case this failed the standards we set for PwC and we deeply regret this occurred.”

PWC said it has since reviewed and strengthened its controls, policies and training with respect to conflicts of interest.

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Source: Thanks smh.com