The Tax Practitioners Board has confirmed it has evidence suggesting more than 22 individuals in six countries may have had some involvement in the sharing or use of confidential tax policy information in the PwC tax leak saga.
A response from the TPB to a question on notice from senator Deborah O’Neill says that the tax agent regulator is still investigating what, if any, involvement different individuals had in the tax policy confidentiality breach that has been at the centre of parliamentary inquiries, nine ongoing investigations by the TPB and an ongoing investigation with the Australian Federal Police.
These additional inquiries are on top of the initial disciplinary findings that saw former PwC partner Peter Collins lose his tax agent registration and the firm cop an order to clear up its internal controls and training related to understanding conflicts of interest.
The firm has also been disciplined by the PCAOB for failing to report both the TPB investigation and the final TPB orders to the US regulator within the required 30-day time limit.
TPB chief executive officer Michael O’Neill told senator O’Neill that the TPB’s evidence drawn from the various e-mails points to a broad distribution of certain information.
The TPB’s evidence is sometimes linked to a broad geographical area, for example, ‘the Americas or ‘Asia Pac’ or to PwC group where the precise participants are unknown, for example, the ‘Transfer Pricing Practice’ or ‘tls’, which we understand to mean ‘Tax Law Services’, the TPB response says.
References described in the senate estimates response by the TPB’s chief executive officer accord with the various addresses in the bundle of emails the senate received almost 12 months ago that exposed the extent of information sharing despite the identity of individuals being redacted.
Evidence obtained by the TPB in its continuing investigations into the accounting firm’s use of confidential policy information suggests practitioners in the US, UK, New Zealand, Ireland and Belgium are in their sights.
There is also a possible link, the TPB’s response says, to Canada.
The TPB’s response comes when the parliamentary committee chaired by senator Richard Colbeck is preparing to finalise a report into its inquiry into government procurement that was called to do a wholesale review of how the government engages with accounting and consulting firms.
That report is due to be tabled in the midst of Budget estimates on May 31.
