Accounting firm PwC might want the community to move on from its tax scandal, but the federal government is continuing to brand the firm as being responsible for its initiatives to reform professional services regulation.
The latest examples of the government’s rolling response to PwC are two consultation papers that raise possible changes to the way professional firms are regulated and ask respondents to consider whether strengthening the information-gathering powers of both the Australian Taxation Office and the Tax Practitioners Board is necessary.
Investigations into PwC’s involvement in a tax policy confidentiality breach highlighted a range of challenges regulatory bodies have in obtaining and sharing information as well as the capacity they have for enforcement.
“The PwC tax leaks matter exposed the fragmented nature of current regulatory settings. The current frameworks provide insufficient governance and transparency to incentivise good corporate behaviour and insufficient ability for our regulators to identify misconduct,” Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said.
“As two of eight Treasury-led reviews announced by the Government in its response to the PwC matter, these consultations will help ensure that regulatory settings remain fit for purpose.
“They follow two packages of reforms that were passed into law in Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Measures No. 1) 2023, and introduced to parliament in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Fairness and Accountability) Bill 2023.”
The consultation paper examining the regulation of accounting, auditing, and consulting firms covers much of the territory on which evidence has been received by both the finance and public administration references committee of the Senate and the parliamentary joint committee on corporations and financial services.
It covers issues such as governance and transparency requirements of professional firms, the management of conflicts of interest, the nature of competition in the professional services sector and whether enforcement of law and professional standards is strong enough.
Conflicts of interest have been a core consideration for the committee chaired by Senator Richard Colbeck, which is due to report later this month on its findings and recommendations on the integrity and ethics of firms that do work for government.
That committee has issued two reports on the conduct of PwC with Colbeck and his colleagues remaining concerned the firm has not provided greater detail on how policy information was circulated overseas.
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