PwC leaked Australia's tax-law plans to win clients — CEO out, nine partners stood down

Around a decade before the scandal broke, PwC's international tax expert Peter-John Collins helped the Australian government design the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law — the 'Google tax' aimed at stopping tech giants shifting profits to lower-tax jurisdictions — while signing multiple confidentiality agreements that barred him from disclosing the knowledge. The Tax Practitioners Board later found he shared that secret knowledge within PwC, giving the firm an advantage in devising ways for companies to avoid paying the new tax.

PwC used the inside information to win new clients and make money, 'even boasting about it internally', according to the ABC's account of the TPB findings — all without the government's knowledge. The board's ruling quoted internal PwC communications showing Collins knew the confidential Treasury knowledge 'would be leveraged to market PwC to a new client base'.

The cover-up unravelled in stages: the TPB suspended Collins's licence in December 2022; PwC tried to keep the decision quiet until the Australian Financial Review reported it in January 2023; Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he was 'absolutely furious' at 'a shocking breach of trust'. CEO Tom Seymour first called it an isolated incident from almost ten years ago, but he stepped down, nine senior partners were stood down, the AFP began investigating Collins, and a Senate inquiry into government consulting began.

The stakes were not abstract: PwC had been the federal government's consulting firm of choice, awarded more than $537 million in Commonwealth contracts in the two years to 2023 — around 20 per cent of its annual Australian revenue — including more than $20 million from the AFP itself since 2021.

The firm monetised government secrets against the very law it had been paid to design, and marketed the workaround to the companies the law targeted.

PwC first tried to keep the regulator's decision quiet, and its CEO framed the scandal as an isolated, decade-old incident before the evidence said otherwise.

The conflicts were structural: the same firm advised the state on tax policy, advised multinationals around tax, and relied on the state for a fifth of its revenue.

Internal emails existed showing the leak was understood inside PwC as a marketing asset — this was not one man's slip but an exploited business opportunity.

Consulting on regulation while selling advice against it is a conflict no confidentiality agreement can police from inside — the client whose secrets you sell is the state.

By June 2023 the AFP investigation into Collins was under way, nine partners had been ordered on leave, the Senate's Finance and Public Administration Committee was examining government use of consultants, and Treasurer Chalmers promised the names of the partners would be released 'in time'. The material did not record any fine imposed on PwC at that point.