By Lewis Jackson
SYDNEY (Reuters) – The chair of an Australian senate committee looking into PricewaterhouseCoopers’ leak of a confidential government tax plan has called for an international investigation into the matter.
Committee chair Senator Richard Colbeck presented a 33-page report on the leak to parliament on Wednesday and said the information released to date showed the scandal “extended internationally” and said other countries should begin their own investigations.
“This was something that was being worked on, negotiated, globally,” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that other jurisdictions should be looking at this matter… it would be in their interests to do so.”
Earlier this month PwC Australia listed in an unpublished letter to the senate committee at least 67 current and former staff who may have known of the 2015 leak of confidential government tax plans.
The report called on the firm to go public with the full details of those involved, accusing it of a years-long deliberate cover-up.
PwC will consider the report’s content and await the government’s response, a spokesperson said.
(Reporting by Lewis Jackson; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
