The Guardian: NSW Greens call for more transparency over settlement between PwC and ATO

The Australian Taxation Office and consultancy giant PwC Australia have reached a settlement over “false legal professional privilege claims in response to formal notices”, separate to a scandal involving the misuse of confidential government tax plans.

PwC first revealed the confidential settlement to a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday but did not disclose any details, leading the NSW Greens to warn the company may have secured “a sweetheart deal” with the ATO before the full scale of a scandal involving the misuse of government data was revealed.

An ATO spokesperson would not reveal what matter the “false legal professional privilege claim” related to, but Senate hearings have heard the claims are sometimes used to frustrate or delay official government inquiries about tax matters.

“The ATO’s settlement with PwC, as disclosed yesterday to the NSW parliament, was not related to the Collins breach of confidentiality in a Treasury process,” the ATO spokesperson said.

“As previously mentioned, the ATO referred the Collins matter to the Tax Practitioners Board and has at no stage attempted to frustrate their investigation.”

The ATO spokesperson said that while all settlements are confidential, it wanted to be as transparent as possible.

“Settlements are an important element of the administration of the tax system because they provide a cost-effective and fair way to resolve disputes and lock in future compliance. The ATO cannot litigate all disputes,” the spokesperson said.

“Significant settlements are reviewed by an ex-judge as part of the Independent Assurance of Settlement process to ensure they are fair and reasonable for the Australian community.”

PwC’s chief risk and ethics leader, Jan McCahey, confirmed the settlement in response to questions on notice from Greens MLC Abigail Boyd, who is a member of the NSW parliamentary committee examining consultants.

“There was a settlement between PwC and the ATO in March 2023. We are legally unable to disclose the details of this settlement,” McCahey wrote.

Boyd said PwC’s “disclosure raises more questions than it answers” and called for further transparency.

Read the full article.

Source: Belot, H., The Guardian, "NSW Greens call for more transparency over settlement between PwC and ATO", published 27 July 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/27/nsw-greens-call-for-more-transparency-over-settlement-between-pwc-and-ato

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

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Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

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The Guardian: NSW Greens call for more transparency over settlement between PwC and ATO

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