The number of people involved in sharing confidential government tax policy obtained by PwC has increased. 

Tax Practitioner Board boss Michael O’Neill has told Senate estimates that partners from consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and staff both in Australia and internationally were involved in monetising the information passed to them by former PwC star Peter Collins, who signed confidentiality agreements between 2013 and 2018 while consulting with Treasury and the Board of Taxation in designing anti-avoidance tax laws.

“The degree of involvement of those people we couldn’t say,” Mr O’Neill said. 

“But 20 or 30 people are involved on the face of the evidence that we have seen.

“The monetising of this matter is more than just Mr Peter John Collins, who suffered a personal response from the Tax Practitioner Board,” Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill said. “He didn’t monetise this by himself. He did it with other people in PwC.”

“That’s right, Senator,” Mr O’Neill said.

The ATO discovered the leak of government documents during an audit, which showed a significant number of internal PwC emails in which partners and others discussed the confidential data, which was also shared with clients.

The big four firm had sought to move on from the affair after Mr Collins resigned late last year and was deregistered by the Board for two years in December.

PwC has often pointed out that the Tax Practitioner Board investigation did not find that any client arrangements or structures were affected in connection with the leaks. 

But Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan has told the economics committee that within weeks of the Multinational Anti Avoidance Law coming into effect in January 2016, “a scheme had been developed and in fact started to be marketed to mainly US-based multinationals to overcome the [MAAL]“.

Mr Jordan was asked if they were PwC clients, and said; “Some were, some could have been prospective clients.”

The ATO says millions of dollars in annual tax revenue could have been lost if PwC had successfully rolled out the tax-avoidance scheme it designed using confidential government briefings.