PwC leaked the inner working of the Australia Tax Office over a number of years. That leak was uncovered in 2023.

This leak occurred in 2023 by a PwC partner named Peter Collins.

How did Peter receive this information? He was helping the Australian government design better tax laws. On its face this isn’t that big of an issue if it was constrained to Australia but PwC used this information internationally. Some of these potential laws were part of a global tax system adopted by the OECD. That is why this has large implications.

PwC also sold tax structures to 14 firms in the United States. They required cooperation with PwC Netherlands and PwC Singapore to execute these plans and structures.

That’s why PwC can’t say this is solely a PwC Australia issue.

Peter Collins knew what he was doing was wrong because he emailed his fellow partners to keep it confidential. He knew the potential implications were huge.

There are 144 of internal emails the implicate a large number of PwC partners around the world.

There is a report of an internal investigation that will be due in September 2023. The government of Australia has accused PwC of not doing enough.

This scandal is so big now that the global PwC firm is getting involved. The lead partner of PwC Australia had to resign because he tried to cover it up and was implicated in the scandal.