The large accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has denied that it promotes tax avoidance schemes.
A committee of MPs singled out PwC for providing tax avoidance structures “on an industrial scale” in a report published on Friday after having held hearings last year.
The Commons Public Accounts Committee criticised PwC last December when 28,000 pages of leaked internal documents purportedly showed the firm steering some 300 firms towards Luxembourg in order to divert profits.
The French whistleblower and former junior accountant, Antoine Deltour, 28, has been charged with theft and exposing trade secrets over the so-called ‘LuxLeaks’ scandal, which exposed deals with some of the world’s biggest corporations, including Apple, Ikea and Pepsi, to avoid billions in taxes.
On Friday, the committee said that “the fact that PwC’s promotion of these schemes is permitted by its own code of conduct is clear evidence that Government needs to take a more active role in regulating the tax industry, as it evidently cannot be trusted to regulate itself”.
PwC disagreed with the claim, but said it helped companies to do business in a complex set of rules. It added: “But we recognise we need to do more to explain the positive role we play in the tax system and in helping businesses to operate successfully.
Comments
Individuals who take advantage of these schemes are pilloried in public; but the bean-counters, governments and international giants like Vodafone, Ikea etc, etc go on avoiding tax to the benefit of directors and shareholders.
Truly we lack in Europe any kind of political or moral leadership.